jjscreativelifemidwife – Page 50 – Creative Life Midwife

Right Before School Starts: When It is Over, Then It Will Be Easier –

August 14, 2017 by jjscreativelifemidwife

It is the weekend before school starts.

Ten years ago during the weekend before school started Samuel ran away from me, four blocks, in extreme fear insisting he would be in kindergarten not first grade. He ran, I now know, because he didn’t have the language abilities to communicate what was going on in his head.

Samuel – August, 2007

I have tried to imagine what that scrambled language feeling must be like, especially for one so intelligent.\\

It was four months after the death of my brother and I had no idea the amount of crisis after crisis I would soon be facing. I remember chasing Samuel down F street in downtown Bakersfield, not even sure if he knew to stop at red lights, calling to him as he ignored me, running with all his six-year-old might, me running with my tired forty-five year old frame, praying through every footstep.

It was Emma’s birthday and we were at a church luncheon where the children would be visiting their new Sunday school classes. Samuel escaped when I was picking up the mess prior to visiting his new classroom upstairs. I didn’t cry when I caught up with him and he was completely resigned to checking out the new Sunday School rooms I was so enthusiastic about.

Yesterday I revisited my notes from that day, to calm my nerves and see the facts as they took place instead of my worry about what took place and the cobwebs surrounding the memory.

After I caught up with him and we both caught our breath, we visited his new room and he declared he was starting first grade. I felt a glimmer of hope I had forgotten and later that night his father took him and his sisters to a Japanese restaurant to celebrate Emma’s birthday. Samuel screamed when the cook at the fancy Japanese restaurant lit the food and fire and he and I they did the celebratory fire. He and I left the restaurant.

We sat in the car, both nervous and upset, both unable to verbalize what we were feeling and thinking.
I wrote in my journal that night,

I am in that weird state of wanting to cry and not being able to cry, not being willing to feel the deep feelings required to squeeze them out, plus it is Emma’s birthday and I still need to get through the cake part.

Emma doesn’t remember it being uncomfortable or unfortunate. It was just Samuel being Samuel and I was just Mommy being Mommy and she was just Emma being Emma.

This year I haven’t gone to school to collect Samuel’s schedule. I haven’t been up for the fight I predict will happen even though last year started without a hitch. The ending was a bit rocky and there was a lot of wonderfulness in between but unfortunately my nerves veer between swaying towers of what actually did happen and what might have happened and might still happen.

I wonder what parents go through whose children don’t have special needs?

I don’t remember my mother ever being nervous at the start of the school year.

I have two more first days of school and then, I’ll be done with K – 12 grade. Four students through high school, three so far started college, one has a master’s degree and one is still attending.

Ten years ago I knew it might be difficult, but I wasn’t prepared for the storm that would hit me and continue to loop back at the start of every school years with several spurts of thunderstorms in between.
This year I question whether I have the advocate dancing in my veins anymore. I’m tired. I’m disillusioned. I’m on the verge of feeling defeated.

Normally I would close an essay with a ra-ra tune of “and everything turned out…” and yet that optimism has been slowly dribbling out of me month by week by day by hour.

Forty-eight hours from now Samuel’s Junior Year in high school will have started.

We will get through whatever needs to get through and I am going to hope, pray, act and believe in the best.

Julie Jordan Scott inspires people to experience artistic rebirth via her programs, playshops,

Take a mini retreat in the canyon, perhaps… or in a local park.

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.

Check out the links below to follow her on a bunch of different social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing.

Increase Your Awareness & Positively Impact Your Business + Your Life Now

August 9, 2017 by jjscreativelifemidwife

How would your professional and personal life benefit if you became more alert and aware around the clock?

Here’s the thing Alert, attentive, keen observation is a skill set easily developed by writers across genre. Whether you are writing sales copy, a Pulitzer worthy journalistic piece or a screenplay, honing your skill of deep concentration and awareness will reap you multiple rewards.

This is what happens when you practice such qualities:

increased ability to think clearly and to understand what is not obvious or simple about something

expanded strength and sensitivy : highly developed

elevated levels of excitement and interest in a topic, concept or idea

continually rising intellectual alertness and curiosity

What is a better way to be described?

What I would give to have my name attached to”highly developed intellect” or “intellectually alert” or “showing an ability to think clearly and to understand what is not obvious or simple about something”

When one has a keen awareness of the world as it unfolds around us and can communicate this to the rest of the world, the better off we will all be.

Quote

“Desire is the starting point of all achievement, not a hope, not a wish, but a keen pulsating desire which transcends everything.”

Napolean Hill

“I was a keen observer and listener. I picked up on clues. I figured things out logically and I enjoyed puzzles. I loved the clear, focused feeling that came when I concentrated on solving a problem and everything else faded out.”

Sonya Sotomayor

Questions for reflection, writing and creativity –

Consider a time you had “keen pulsating desire” as Napolean Hill describes. What happened? What did you do about your “keen pulsating desire”?

How important is observation in your writing life?

Lists

Make a list of 5 – 10 ways to use your senses to increase your skills at keen observation.

Remember 5 – 10 times you were an alert, keen observer. What happened?

Bonus: Write a scene, vignette, poem or outline surrounding one of the items on your lists. Take your list to create your own writing prompts.

Writing Prompts/Activities:

Writing Prompt Activity: Observe an object in your near vicinity, preferably something ordinary. Observe it keenly – with all your senses for five minutes. When the five minutes are over, write what you saw, smelled, heard, touched and in some cases, tasted. Write what is tangible as well as metaphorical. Make associations. Have fun!

Second prompt: Write about what you observed about yourself in the previous activity. For fiction writers, how would your character approach this exercise?

Julie Jordan Scott is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy and mixed-media artist whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people’s creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs soon.

Check her out on social media channels using the links above, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing.

Tales of a Gratitude Convert: How Writing A Love Letter to My Eyeglasses Caused a HUGE shift

August 7, 2017 by jjscreativelifemidwife

There was a time when I would describe myself as a “Gratitude Convert”. I had been wayyyy over the top cynical about what I called the whole “phoneys with their attitude of gratitude nonsense!” yet several years ago all that shifted.

I am now a proponent of gratitude from the first hand knowledge of its power in my life. Period.

My practice isn’t what it used to be, though. I can’t even explain why. Yesterday and today, I “got” gratitude even more deeply, even as a long time gratitude practitioner. I am thinking I will Re-Start my practice by doing exactly what I did yesterday. Read on to see what I mean:

I read a prompt yesterday when I was in a moment of “I want to write but I just don’t feel inspired by anything!” and voila, my purple eyeglasses caught my attention. I wrote for sixty seconds. I didn’t come up with anything particularly brilliant, but it – and they – helped me to see into gratitude a bit more deeply.

You know, feeling meaningful gratitude for those every day, mundane items in our lives that we would function less well if we didn’t have them.

I decided to pull the prompt out and write a thank you/love letter to my eyeglasses. Before you read my love letter, find something of yours that is right there, within an arm length. Set it beside or in front of you as you read my love letter.

If you want to feel even more deeply, read my love letter aloud.

Beloved Eyeglasses,

You tirelessly sit on the bridge of my nose, asking for nothing but the occasional cleaning. You help me to see things I could not see without you. Even now, as I get more mature and take you off and leave you places carelessly, you don’t complain.

You never get up and leave me. It is I who consistently leave you.

I feel your generous smile when I put you back up there, straddling my nose, aligning with my ears, fulfilling your sole purpose: to help me see.

Oh, beloved Italian purple eyeglasses, Katherine keeps telling me to get a new pair, that you don’t work as well as you once did for me, that I shouldn’t have to take you off all the time but… I can’t bring myself to switch to a different pair.

Sure, there have been others. My first pair fell into the Delaware River when I was canoeing after my mother warned me, “Don’t go canoeing with your glasses on!” and

then, there was the time when we sat at the optometrist and I, in a brief moment of prepubescent rebellion told my Mom to just shut up about my going to camp by myself and how brave it was – “Shut up with your praise, Mom!”

You must understand, Purple pair of eyeglasses, this was the back-then equivalent of saying “the “F” word you, Mom…” My glasses have all made me feel braver, I suppose, because with you, I can see.

Without you, everything is blurry.

I remember one spiritual friend of mine insisting glasses are not a real need, that I could use my mind as a visual corrector instead.

I didn’t argue as I don’t usually. I nodded and listened and knew when I have you in my life, my life is simply better.

Oh, beloved purple eyeglasses.

It took this moment for me to see what is right here, in front of my face.

I love you dearly.

Thank you.

Your now even more grateful owner,

Julie

My eyeglasses are my friend, nearly lifelong friend. Eyeglasses have been a part of my profile since I was in sixth grade and could no longer see the chalk board. I didn’t always wear the same purple pair, but I have always had some always-ready-to-serve eyeglasses close at hand.

I had brief flings with contact lenses and these days, I use them differently, but oh, my glasses. How I love and appreciate the work you do for me.

Writing this love letter meant so much more than just adding them to a list of gratitudes. I love my gratitude lists and may write them again in the future. For now, I am going to write gratitude love letters to all those mundane, overlooked, underappreciated aspects of my life I normally don’t even notice.

Maybe you’ll even feel compelled to write gratitude love letters along with me.

Try it out. Start with 5 minutes of love for something ordinary.

If you post something – an instagram post, a blog post, anything – please send a link my way. Maybe I’ll end up writing a love letter to YOUR love letter.

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.

Check out the links below to follow her on a bunch of different social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing.

It Feels So Good (To Finally Feel Better)

August 7, 2017 by jjscreativelifemidwife

Today is the first day in many days I woke up feeling good. Revisiting old works-in-progress, writing new poetry that weaves old in new, combining household chores with wild creativity in the AND space (rather than either-or)How do I forget how good this feels?

I posted a flat-lay of my calendar and hints of my creative process and knew, just knew, I needed to spend five minutes in stream of consciousness, free flow brain dumping to make the day even better.

I’ll admit it: part of this is an invitation for you to create alongside me – so if you’re willing – keep reading and prepare to write, too.

It feels so good to….

Set my timer for five minutes and know I can completely give this time over to my creative process.

It feels so good to listen to classical music just because I like it and not worry about anyone judging my taste or think anything other than “wow, this must really make Julie feel good to listen to classical music!”

It feels so good to have my diffuser going as I listen to classical music and write. It feels so good to ask myself questions and have conversations not with my higher self but with this self – the me that is right now inhabiting this imperfect body in this scratchy time in our culture that sometimes looks like thunder storms are brewing and then I remember, “I sort of, no not sort of – I enjoy thunder storms.”

It feels good to smile, gently, truthfully – and feel it get wider as I think “Mona Lisa, in my imagination anyway, would be proud.”

It feels so good to have conversations over breakfast with Emma and Samuel, to invoke Samuel’s creativity and watch his non-poker face as I mention his gifts in the way of seeing. “Samuel is a really good photographer” I say and Emma says, “He has a really good eye. I don’t.”

“Ahhh, practice will help that,” I tell Emma. “I’m like you. Samuel is a natural.”

That just feels sacred and holy, moments we would often brush aside as we exfoliate our memories and our presences.

It feels so good to reorganize and tidy up a bit. It feels so good to put my hands in the suds as I wash dishes and clean the counters not in an angry “Oh I have to do this and I hate it” but “oh, I am so glad this will look so bright in a few minutes and the way this stuff smells….mmmmm” and yes. It all feels so good.

I hear the applause on my timer peter our and it tells me this particular moment in good times writing is over.

I am grateful I took the moment. I am grateful you are reading. I am grateful for feeling better this morning than I have for a long time.

Now, your turn. And now you write….

= = = =

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

Write It – Whatever You Claim as “It” Right Now. Just Write It.

August 4, 2017 by jjscreativelifemidwife

I didn’t think about it, I just did it. I took the moment to take a breath and look at it. Look at what was there. And I wrote. I wrote of a picture of nothing and I found so much more than I knew was there.

The short, sweet paragraph above is the Pollyanna version. The rampant negative self-talk edition goes like this:

“What the hell are you doing? When will you stop steeping yourself in self importance and realize no one cares? Do you hear me? No one cares. No one thinks like you do nor would they ever want to. Who takes pictures of shadows on the wall and brags about it? You aren’t looking at a scene of a Hawaaian beach with your perfect middle aged body (HA! AS IF!) and your stock photo kids going to important schools doing volunteer work with the homeless while voluntarily working at non profits for a pittance because you have more money than you know what to do with? That’s what people want to see. Not shadows on the wall that have no meaning dumbshit idiot.”

Gee. That makes me want to write more.

The thing is: when we push through that globby mess that comes on either side of the truth and continue moving forward in the space of what is – anyway, however wherever whatever, our words will find our way no matter what sort of writing you are doing.

You can take your brain dump about the shadows on the wall and relate that back to your work as a copywriter or portrait painter or hotel manager. Write yourself a prompt, “What does this image say about pareto planning for office managers” and before you negate the question write your way into it.

Write your way into and through whatever is in front of you.

Finally give yourself the freedom to say whatever it is you need to say to the world.

Yes, I wrote the above words in a five minute free writing Brain Dump. I didn’t edit or think, I just wrote. This morning when I was still in bed and not feeling well physically (I still don’t) I saw this – and took a photo:

I set my phone timer to five minutes wrote into my phone notes section.

Shadows of mulberry leaves etched in my sky blue walls promise nothing and I write them, anyway. I only now notice my fading, needs to be reupholstered couch is also covered with leaves, sketched against blue, waiting to be noticed and remembered.

These last 24 and a few more hours have little within them I want to continue to carry beyond these words. My thirst recollects being quenched, my feet remember feeling strong and optimistic, my eyes remember looking straight ahead, determined and magnetized by the eastern horizon as blank slates of a new day rose to greet me with fluid consistency.

What changed?

What blighted my perception?

What is it that makes me surrender to even a moment lost to its residual calling?

Today I stared at losses of two particulars, non abstractions and shrugged. My muscles go limp and I slither down the slide.

5 minutes. Done.

Now it’s your turn. Write for your five minutes. Take a photo of whatever is in front of you and allow that to inspire you for a mere five minutes at your keyboard or in your notebook or writing into your phone notes section as if you were texting a friend.

For a bonus, set your timer for another 5 minutes and ask yourself, “How does this relate to my current (project, plan, challenge) in my work life?” and write for 5 more minutes. No planning, no forethought just write.

If you are in our Facebook Group – the link is here – post a photo and your writing in a safe space.

If you aren’t in our facebook group, post a comment here or email me at juliejs@creativelifemidwife.com

Coming Up: 30 Days of Writing Passionately

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

Check out the links below to follow her on a bunch of different social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing.

Let’s Experience, Express & Explore Gratitude.

August 1, 2017 by jjscreativelifemidwife

The power of gratitude is undeniable, whether you want to leverage its strength in your business or relationships or your personal growth is up to you.

I won’t even say you’re crazy if you don’t because that’s just not my style but what I will say is coming next.

When you are alert to life as it unfolds around you and you begin to notice the nuances and subtle whispers it offers you, you will begin to experience gratitude in ways you never expected.

Surprise! You are taking a break to just breathe between coaching sessions with clients and a monarch butterfly catches your eye, affirming the work you just completed. Exhale gratitude.

Your clients and that butterfly and every tiny speck and fleck of your unfolding life offer you an invitation into more gratitude exploration.

Your task? To jot some notes right now and continue throughout the day. Invite your awareness to increase. Then ask your subconscious to tag team and make connections between what gratitude shows up and how that interrelates to the solutions to your client’s problem.

What does the monarch butterfly appearing and affirming you have to do with your clients’ most pressing needs?

I can feel you smiling all the way over here. Well, all of you except for you – my dear friend – who thinks you have to control your thought process. That’s ok too, really, except try for a second to breathe into the gratitude and exhale the solution without thinking about the solution – think instead about the gratitude and let your subconscious mind bring the goods on the solution.

We’ve got you!

One last thing? Please let me know how it goes.

(This post was written using the model I explored in a previous blog post over on Julie Unplugged, “How to Become a Better Writer Using Instagram. Check it out and see how I followed along.)

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

What is Calling You to Attention: Write it out to Make Positive Change in Your Life Now

July 31, 2017 by jjscreativelifemidwife

Last week I wrote for five minutes using this prompt image I created.

Mondays are my day to “pay attention” oftentimes after weekends which are prone to distraction.

I have only made minor edits to my “in the moment” writing using the #5for5BrainDump method.

There are so many distractions as I sit here and attempt to write for five minutes about awakening love for my writing process. I see a broom and want to sweep, I look at the clock and I want to assemble lunch for my children and get out into the money making flow “hurry it up hurry it up hurry it up!” I heaer in my inner ear. Oh, Lord I can’t do it all – my anxiety reaches for my throat to shut my voice – my writing voice – down.

Five minutes. That’s all.

My fingers continue to move, on the keyboard focused.

Reawaken love for the process.

Let go of end result. Welcome bad or mediocre or lukewarm results. (Youch!) Yes, even lukewarm.

Awaken to the process being enough. This is so un-pilgrim-esque: there must be results. My inside habits shriek!

There must be a something in order to continue I can’t just continue for a nothing that makes no sense.

*Note to self: the results come from the on-going practice. When I re-read this five minute writing, I discover content possibilities even in this short chunk of writing. I find instantly solutions for people who seek my programs, my coaching, my books and courses.

Oh, yeah, there’s that.

Process is worth all of the wonder and exhilaration of what other peole call “results” that I have had as a part of writing for five minutes a day – being on a best seller list or having twenty five people pay a thousand dollars to hear me speak.

People are pushing me and I am welcoming it.

My community is rising up to greet me and say “Bring your work forward with and for us” it is almost surreal, beloveds, almost surreal.”

If it was a job.

Is it still less than five minutes?

I hear the coffee pot call me, the coffee pot that has been creating really tasty coffee lately.

I think of the squirrel and planning and play. And me. And love. And movement.

And applause. All that in five minutes.

Now it is YOUR turn to write. Ready?

Set your timer for five minutes. I use the online timer under this link here.

Now look back up at the image and either hand write the prompt or type it into a document. Press go on your timer. No editing, no forethought, just writing. Now.

You’ve got this… What is calling for my attention is….

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

Check out the links below to follow her on a bunch of different social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing.

Reawakening Love for The Writing Process Itself

July 28, 2017 by jjscreativelifemidwife

It is one of the most powerful questions you may ask yourself: “What do I really, truly want in this wild and wonderful life I’ve been given?”

As writers, we may ask specifically about our writing, “What do I really, truly want to create with my writing? How do I want my writing process to feel?”

We may ask, “How may I awaken my love for the writing process?”

I wish I could tell you the answer naturally rushes out in a beautifully crafted message right from my subconscious to my keyboard.

It doesn’t usually happen like that. Instead, a process we come to know as even more delicious than instantly having an answer takes place and instead of just “getting an answer” I give myself room to fall back in love with writing.

Stay with me so you may deepen or fall in love all over again with both your creative process AND your life. I will share with you what I wrote in five minutes. I am taking that risk, I am allowing you into my own writing perfect imperfections. It is scary for me AND I am willing to go there because it is so important for each of us.

“When love awakens in your life, it is like a rebirth, a new beginning.”

John O’Donohue

I started to write:

Think outside of the realm of romantic love now.

If I reawakened to the love in my writing life, I would discover… my words have more merit and meaning than I had originally believed. In fact, I haven’t believed deeply enough in eons. Or at least a long time. Eons, that’s a bit of hyperbole.

Isn’t it funny how a moment in time may feel like eons? It may feel like hyperbole too. Maybe we should write about love AS hyperbole. Maybe we should write about love being someone else drinking the yummilicous coffee I made for myself. Or stealing the chocolate bar (for myself) or… enter your weird quirk here.

“My sun sets to rise again.”

Robert Browning

Settling in, I think about Nutella sandwiches. I think about my slouchery as a mother. I think “What will my babies eat if I don’t map it out?”

= = =

There are so many distractions as I sit here and attempt to write for five minutes about awakening love for my writing process. I see a broom and want to sweep, I look at the clock and I want to assemble lunch for my children and get out into the money making flow “hurry it up hurry it up hurry it up!” I hear in my inner ear. Oh, Lord I can’t do it all – my anxiety reaches for my throat to shut my voice – my writing voice – down.

Five minutes. That’s all.

My fingers continue to move, on the keyboard focused.

Reawaken love for the process.

Let go of end result. Welcome bad or mediocre or lukewarm results. (Youch!) Yes, even lukewarm.

Awaken to the process being enough. This is so un-pilgrim-esqu: we are trained to insist upon results that are only in our favor. “There must be a something in order to continue I can’t just continue for a nothing that makes no sense.”

Writing this is not a nothing. Writing these words is definitely a something.

Process is worth all of the wonder and exhilaration of being on a best seller list or having twenty five people pay a thousand dollars to hear me speak.

My community is rising up to greet me and say “Bring your work forward with and for us” it is almost surreal, beloveds, almost surreal.”

Is it still less than five minutes?

I heard the coffee pot call me, the coffee pot that has been creating really tasty coffee lately.

I think of the squirrel and planning and play. And me. And love. And movement.

And applause. (My timer applauds when my time is up.) All that in five minutes.

= = =

Now it is your turn to take today’s prompt and write from it. You may write once or you may write several times.

“How may I awaken my love for the writing process?”

Remember to set your timer for five minutes and after your time is up, spend fifteen to thirty seconds writing what you are grateful for either from the writing experience or from your life in general.

The world is waiting for your words: let’s get them on the page now.

Be sure to follow me so you may continue to stay close to this sort of writing inspiration to keep your writing flowing and your life moving in the direction your heart seeks.

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

Check out the links below to follow her on a bunch of different social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing.

How to Write Anywhere from Random Inspiration, an Old School Pencil plus a Sprinkling of Word-Love

July 27, 2017 by jjscreativelifemidwife

I wrote the majority of the poem below at one of Bakersfield’s quirkiest fast food drive-thru windows. They make fabulous veggie breakfast burritos, so my intent to feed Emma and take a moment or two of solace was met when I stumbled past my to-do list for a moment of writing play from a page of a college text book published the year I was born.

I wrote with a very appropriate yellow, number two wooden pencil. I wrote in cursive and asked my sixteen-year-old son if he could even read cursive. “Kinda,” he said from the back seat as I showed him my fledgling work of art.

Any tiny slice of these moments this morning would never entered into the minds of the faculty of Louisiana Polytechnic institute when the pored over the just right content and the most highly regarded readings for college freshman who were born while Europe was being flattened by hate and might and fervor.

When this writer-poet-word-lover started making art and word prompts from book pages purchased at library book sales and SPCA Fundraisers, word-lust and art collided to create… what you’ll find below.

By the way, a fun way to create writing prompts on the go is to use a daily newspaper. Circle three words from an article and use those words to inform your content in a poem or a paragraph, a tweet or an Instagram story.

Now, for this poem:

Blue Waltz and Brillcreem – (She loves the words exactitude and abstraction together)

Exactitude met abstraction in two lines in a 1950’s textbook

staunch and quirky, measurable and a running-off-the-table’s edge

puddle straddling similar yet always slightly or eons apart concepts,

Can you see them? free range and structured words abandoned,

unpolished: abstract exactitude – sweet and savory, Abbott and Costello

letters whose sole aim was to assist today’s dead or nearly dead then adolescents figure

out what language really meant.

Language: still alive and forever

captured because this poem is being written now, decades later

and you are in fact reading or hearing this

language habadashery, stitched earnestly into a semblance

of something – hopefully not completely unpleasant.

The wonder, the strength of the academic lust mixed with brill creem and

Blue waltz, cardigans and denim, cuffs turned up at the bottom –

Nothing but ephemera now. Intangible abstraction, once fragrant

Exactitude mixed with optimism and blind hope-filled ambition

###

It isn’t brilliant poetry AND yet it felt so good to write. The process opened me to some fun language I may continue to play with perhaps as a stand alone prompt or two or perhaps, I’ll take this poem on a “revision date” and feel full with it.

My bet is YOU have writing that would benefit from a revision date as well.

I just had a thought we might create a time of “revision date night” and pull out works such as these to fine tune and prepare for publication. Definitely worth considering.

I’ll close with a video I just created to inspire your writing using the sense of smell. Since this post was inspired by a drive through window and this video was inspired by the smell of pancakes, let’s move there for a moment now.

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.

The Power of Attention: Use It to Improve Your Writing Now

July 25, 2017 by jjscreativelifemidwife

What is something you feel called to pay attention to, even if just for five or ten minutes or an afternoon or a day?

Let’s pay attention to how our words desire to flow for a sentence or a paragraph.

I’m going to pay attention to how my neck feels. I am going to pay attention for five minutes without concern about where this writing or this attention moves because in the world I inhabit, there is no wrong with this process, there is simply writing.

Inhale: There is no wrong or right, there is simply writing.

Exhale: No wrong, purely write. For five minutes. Begin.

‘I am going to pay attention to how my neck feels. I am going to sit here, at my desk and lower my head as if praying and feel how it is to.. and as I paid attention and relaxed my neck my hands fell away from the keyboard and I almost instantly fell asleep.

Perhaps that is why I tend to hold on so tight, because I don’t want to fall asleep.

How does one fall asleep and pay attention at the same time? Mothers of newborns do this all the time but then again we never seem to sleep really well then we just sort of… kind of sleep. Maybe paying attention serves as a reminder of how sleepy I am and how good it feels to rest.

I am going to pay attention to the good stuff in my notebooks that sit around, waiting for me to scoop them up and glean the goodies, like this one: I write to make peace with the things I cannot control.

I write to create textured, purple fabric in a world that often appears flat with grey or black or white only.

I write to experience a daily act of improvisation.

I write as though I am whispering into the ear of the one I love. ß timer says “stop – fingers off the keyboard)

When I re-read my words a week later I discovered with a giggle originally that final sentence read “I am whispering into the “war” of the one I love” perhaps because my subconscious felt the need to remind me I haven’t felt at peace with the person whose ear I have whispered to for many years now.

Perhaps paying attention includes making peace with open, compassionate diligence.

Are you ready for your turn?

Where will you focus your attention for a mere five minutes?

Set your timer for five minutes and write. Move your pencil, pen or fingers on the keyboard.

Write.

Take a mini retreat in the canyon, perhaps… or in a local park.

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.

Check out the links below to follow her on a bunch of different social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing.