Creative Life Midwife

Inspiring Artistic Rebirth

Writers & Creatives: Passionate Detachment MAY be Your Best Friend –

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I started writing this as a five minute brain dump (#5for5BrainDump) and then discovered… I hadn’t started my timer. Nonetheless, I loved the content so here it is – unedited and raw but about ten minutes worth.

I wrote from the quote you see below –

“Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions; reality can be obtained only by someone who is detached. ”
― Simone Weil

Passionate Detachment is a theory/term I made up roughly fifteen years ago from a conversation with a painting contractor while we talked about small running backs one hot day in Bakersfield.

I’m sure there are similar concepts but I enjoy the paradox and how it sounds, the variety of vowels and consonants.

Passionate detachment: going for your goal with all you’ve got and not being attached to the results of your efforts. Be entranced, delighted and full throttle, like the five-foot-six-inch high school running back who puts his head down and runs right through the huge defensive linemen and heads toward the end zone without worrying about the two-hundred-pound tackle launched in his direction.

Sports analogies work in the US.

It is the painter who splashes paint for hours on end on her masterpiece, not concerned with commercial endeavors yet knowing if this painting resonates with the right audience and her art dealer gets this painting in front of the right people it will change EVERYTHING and yet she just goes for it – she may have visualized and strategized and held countless meetings but the bottom line is she loves how the paint smells and how it feels to move it on the canvas, how the expression on that face she just created reminds her of her first grade teacher, Miss Foley, when she told her “Happy Mother’s Day” with the sweet purity of a seven-year-old who loves her single-not-a-parent-yet-teacher-who-obviously –loves-children.

Passionate detachment says “I will go after success AND I will do what I love, regardless of how wacky some people may think I am in doing so.”

Passionate detachment says, “Make that slightly offbeat declaration about your plans on Facebook in front of everyone you know (and a few people you met once in passing who friended you) and then, by gosh and by golly, take action in the direction of that wild dream no one thinks you will ever really do.

Passionate detachment says, “I don’t know how I’m going to do this, but I am going to start because I know Plato once said something like ‘The beginning is the most important part of the work’ and if I just talk about beginning but don’t actually start, it is worth nothing. And my vision and I are both worth a  whole lot of something so here… I…. “ and then, the passionately detached person takes that leap.

She moves her pencil on the blank page. He makes that phone call to that investor he met while riding pool on Uber in Los Angeles. They sign that contract to rent that space for the event they have wanted to hold and place the ad and talk to five more people than they’re comfortable speaking to because they are passionate and they are detached. They know they are worth every action and their vision is worth every small and not-so-small risk.

They are passionately detached.

(Sometimes brain dumps are interrupted by phones ringing and sometimes they end with applause.)

How do you create with passionate detachment?

 

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How to Make Writing More Fun & Effective (Even if You Have Depression)

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It is possible to write: even when you have depression

Confession: I have an ongoing relationship with depression. I am not depressed, I don’t suffer with depression – I have a relationship with depression, one I’ve had since childhood.

It often goes underground and becomes invisible. Occasionally it comes roaring to the surface as it has for well over a year now, but especially evident since January.

As a creative, depression can be especially brutal for me because a big part of my symptomology includes very low motivation and flat affect. This morning I sat at my desk and I willed myself to write and in the process it occurred to me there may be many of you out there in a similar situation.

What I was reminded of this morning is the effectiveness of creating mini-writing goals and games to move me from a space of not-writing to writing.

The net result? I feel better. I would love nothing more at this point than to know I helped someone else feel better, too. I offer these suggestions as possibilities. Please try them on and write with them, at least for a day or two or maybe even three.

Let’s Play Writing Games with Goals (and feel better in the process.)

  1. 1. Make your writing goal game as simple as possible: write one sentence. Then another, then another. Often with depression we can’t even begin to state a goal like we can when we are not feeling depressed. That once shining, glittering project gets fuzzy and grows into your scariest version of the abominable snow man and the loch ness monster combined. Your first writing goal? Write five sentences on the same topic. Doesn’t matter if it is a paragraph and it doesn’t matter if it makes sense. Five sentences. Period.
  2. Find one person to report to daily or almost daily. Be sure to determine if that person is a match for you. I had an accountability partner briefly but her energy literally stressed me out more than I was so it wouldn’t work at that moment in time. Find a compassionate person who has your best interest at heart who is capable of holding a flashlight alongside you to illuminate your greatest accomplishments, not the glaring weaknesses you may be prone to see first and foremost, always.
  3. When your own words are exceptionally stubborn, search for quotes on topics you would normally be inspired to write about and then hand write those quotes into your notebook or journal. It may sound odd, but copying good writing often leads to writing your own good writing. Perhaps pick up a favorite novel and start copying a favorite scene from it, word by word by word. This is a writer’s block medicine that works every time. Don’t think it will? Try it, without attachment and let me know what happens.
  4. Write what is around you in the precise moment you sit down to write. Allow yourself to have fun with what is around you. This morning, I wrote this while trying to figure out what to write:

I heard my coffee maker call out, “Come get your cup! Drink it! Feel better!” so I think I will. I can hear the sprinkler outside the window and if I close my eyes I can feel the moisture in the air against my skin and pretend I’m close to the ocean or river or a like, maybe, rather than my Bakersfield living room.

 I started the day working, aiming to be pleasant and gracious when I wasn’t feeling it, whittling away time with people I didn’t want to be with in exchange for a few dollars as I contemplated sunrise and the possibility of exchanging my time for a substitute teaching gig.

 I think about my writing goals – actually my goals in general, and I think about what one might do to light that passion fire again, to once again see the potential in a project one once loved and since has sputtered out – victim of lack of oxygen and fuel.

 I sit with my hands under my chin, my eyes closed, and realize I could easily choose to fall back to sleep, to let my mind go numb again but something nudges me from the inside to continue typing, to keep getting words out – to light the way for others so that when they feel less-than-optimal they may read these words and remember there is a better, more companionable way.

 5. Be open to enjoyment of the process. Depression is never fun and moments within it may actually be exactly the light we need to begin feeling better. When I actually write, I almost always feel better later. If you need help with this, we will be doing #5for5BrainDump livestream sessions on my Periscope Channel for the next two weeks. These WILL help you to write.

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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Choose to Be Awake: Laughter, Meditation, Writing (& Writing Prompt)

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Last night I sat in a group meditation and had the unbelievable desire to roll around on the floor laughing. In my heartful imagination I was, in fact, rolling around on the floor, laughing. My mind took over, though, believing this was wholly unpleasant for all the others gathered stoically on the floor so peacefully.

I held my laughter in my smile and in my mind, probably not being the perfect meditator sitting with my mind and heart wide open like…

Yet my mind is wide awake and open when I roll on the ground laughing “hysterically” isn’t it?

I sit at my desk and laugh a bit to see how it really feels to laugh even jovially.

(My free writing genie says “How many ways are there to laugh? How many ways are there to describe a ‘brand’ of laughter? Good prompt, dear one, good prompt!)

When I laugh my core gets a workout, automatically. I don’t have to think about it and today, I think to put my hands on my belly not to hold it but to almost worship it? Dare I worship my own (the culture I swim in says too round) belly?

I think I’ll try that again. How about you try it with me.

Hands on belly and…. Giggle, laugh, chuckle.

I notice when I “try” to laugh, the top of my belly shakes a bit but when I am suddenly caught with a memory that turns the laughter toward truth, more of my body is involved. I throw my head back and my hair tickles my shoulders. I can smell the perfume I grazed my skin with after I curlved my hair. I can feel the shaking in my thigh and down my shoulders to my elbows and my hands atop my belly accept the ride like my children did as babies when we played, “I had a little pony and his name was Jack” and they mimicked horse riding in my lap which almost always lead to celebrations of laughter.

After our group meditation I told Lindsay, our leader,  there was one point I had a near overwhelming desire to roll around the floor laughing.

Her response, wide eyed and smiling, “That would have been great!”

Remembering the words of William Stafford “A Ritual to Read to Each Other” that inspired this writing today.

“For it is important awake people be awake,

Or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep:

The signals we give – yes or no, maybe –

Should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.”

Your prompt:

Today I choose to be more awake to….. write for 5 minutes without editing, judgment or forethought. Simply write, let your words float across the page. And if you feel like laughing uncontrollably at any point, permission is always granted here. There are no rights or wrongs, there is just writing.

Here I am writing by the graveside of Louisa May Alcott, the author of Little Women – a highly successful book that hasn’t been out of print for more than 100 years.

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.

 

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How the Language of Every Day Creates…. Contentment, A-ha Moments & More

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What would you say if I told you this post was built upon two five minute writing sessions and a life inspired by challenges and overcoming fear, a long held and unrecognized until recently addiction?

Here’s the thing: I believe in writing in 5 minute chunks. This is well documenting. Allowing words to flow and then massaging them later simply works.

In the next paragraph there is a quote by William Stafford. I read this quote and a poem (tomorrow a video of me reading  it will be at the bottom of this post) and the rest of the words tumbled forth, musical notes accompanied by a five-minute exercise I created called the #5for5BrainDump.

Join me, now, on this word adventure.

“When you make a poem you merely speak or write the language of every day, capturing as many bonuses as possible and economizing on losses; that is, you come aware to what always goes on in language, and you use it to the limit of your ability and your power of attention to the moment.”

William Stafford

I challenged myself to write poetry this time: no institution or celebratory month is guiding me.

It is purely  my desire to practice, my will to dig more deeply, bring to life my idea that poetry creation might help me to figure stuff out a little bit better than… not.

I have a word pool (a collection of words to stir up the process and serve as a sort of paint-on-a-writing-palette and my timer is moving.

Grind groove habit hang up “into” manner matter of course mode observance.

It (fear)  comes upon me it seems without warning, like the breeze suddenly lifting my hair from my shoulders

Flirting with me, making me feel more than slightly feminine and deep inside my core whispers, “You are a girl, this is what it is, sink into that feeling of something else moving your hair, giving you that weightless out of control oh, doesn’t that feel just right” feeling and I stop, my stomach beginning to churn, “no, it isn’t like that it isn’t like that.”

Is it like the way you feel when you are dancing, grooving, moving your body in a way that feels slightly to the left of heaven and full steam ahead into paradise when you catch someone looking with the eyebrow raised just so and the tongue on the tip of the cluck so you skip a beat and stop and slow and sludge becomes the order of the day and you forget you love to dance and you certainly don’t get anything except regret back anytime soon.

It is a matter of course then? An item on the daily to-do?

Feel fear and be paralyzed, all the time?

How to invite fear and expand it horizontally and vertically in 5 simple blood curdling steps?

Take five doses of fear daily and be sure to get nowhere in life except frightened. Repeat doses daily, add another dosage if nothing happens.

I almost stop typing because it is so preposterous and I know the adage of “what we focus on grows” so I remind myself, “This is just a game.”

Passionate Possibilities otherwise known as my week long Daily to-do list:

When I feel fear creep into my space, take note of it. Pre-program responses such as these to say internally and aloud if it helps. . “Fear – I see you for who you are. You are not welcome here. Good bye! Today, I choose courage.”

When I feel fear creep into my space, I will feel my feet on the ground – every inch of connection noted to the floor, the carpet, the sand, the grass, the concrete and I will express gratitude for the feeling of connection. I will repeat, “Today, I choose courage.”

When I feel fear mocking my femininity through seduction or flirtation, I will note it and remember the potent heroes and sheroes of the feminine. I will reach my hands out and build a bridge with them. I will affirm myself, “This is a bridge over fear to courage. Today, I choose peace.” (The word after today I choose may change according to what feels the most resonant with that day.)

My five-minute-timer went off about three minutes ago.

I elected to continue writing because the insights were continuing to be born. I knew actively giving them space would net more benefit for me and for you, my readers, so I chose to stay with it because today I am choosing courage, peace, poetry and you and me.

Who will be brave enough to tell me about your fear or better yet, who else is brave enough to begin building that bridge from fear into courage?

Maybe you’ve built it partially before or maybe you just haven’t used the bridge you once built and it requires some slight adjustments.

In any and all of those cases, know I am here to listen, to sit alongside you and together we have the passion and collective power to craft intentionally toward your most vivid, aligned with your vision future.

To request an appointment with me to talk, text or message about my programs and upcoming possibilities, please fill out the contact form on my website.

The world is waiting for your words: you are worth taking the time to gain clarity and get your voice on the page and into the world now.

Coming Up: 30 Days of Writing Passionately

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-mediaartist  whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people’s creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming through the end of 2017.

 

 

 

 

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Love & Fear & Pain and How Writing Always Provides a Path to Feeling Better: Every Single Time

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It happened again today, something happened that I long to write about but I don’t want to write because I don’t want to feel the pain of it.

I am still awake at 2:01 am. A fly is buzzing about my otherwise quiet room and I may open the window to tune into a bird who is singing outside the window, or was, before I attempted to construct this sentence.

I open the windows, I set my timer and the bird no longer sings.

A car drives by, a candle flickers next to me: no bird song.

What a moment ago brought infinite delight may so easily be clouded by unnecessary thought pollution: “I did something wrong, I didn’t appreciate the bird so the bird flew away. Perhaps the mulberries went stale from the power of complaints about them earlier today. My neighbor hates my mulberry tree and probably hates birds, too. Especially when they poop purple.”

I take my hands off the keyboard.

I listen to the silence, coaxing the bird back.

Here’s the thing: I can’t coax the bird back, I can only coax myself back to the keyboard, one word at a time. I remembered earlier today throughout the day, “I feel better when I write.”

The several days ago version of me must have known this version of me would be appearing, the version of me that gets buried in sadness, that gets tugged at by insecurity and worry and fear.

I was startled by the sound of applause, my timer setting announcing my five minutes of writing is done.

I examine my fingers, distraction addiction, and I decide to “re-up” for a second five minutes, focusing on love. Love as a prompt, I think, toning “love” in between sentences, phrases and quotes of love.

Like the Beatles singing, “All you need is love…” and the cynical version of me shoves a raspberry in her mouth and blows out in disagreement, blotting the thought from my consciousness. Love: is a many splendored thing.

I don’t understand lyrics and writing like that. What is a “splendored thing” anyway?
Reminds me of the many ways NOT to use jargon in writing. Splendid I understand, superb I get. These are good, more than adequate.

Splendored is silly almost junior high aged attempt to be smart sounding?

Love is. Love IS! That’s the perfect love sentence and in fact, is quite grounding.

Love is patient, as Paul says. Love is kind. Love is purple – lavender, the color of sunrise and sunset and transitions. Love will keep you steady during transitions and times of difficulty. Love sometimes leans in and holds you when you need it. Sometimes love wants to show you a slightly different way and you might even feel hurt by it (like the… and the applause comes again and I decided to stop before I ramble down that lane that might come across as negative.

It is 2:14. The time twice a day that remembers Valentine’s Day.

As almost always, I feel better now than when I started. Which is why I write and suggest, so strongly, other people write, too. Just let your words flow, don’t worry about grammar or syntax or rules you long ago learned and forgot.

Just move your pencil, your pen, your fingers on the keyboard.

And now I have a writing prompt for tomorrow.

Things just keep getting better.

 

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The Literary Grannies Rise Because…. They Want Us to Be Free

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It isn’t a secret I love literary grannies: women writers who forged a path so that my words would be more respected than they might have been without them. I’ve written about them, I’ve visited many homes and gravesites and workspaces.

I’ve shared their work, I’ve fangirled their books, I’ve searched for photos, made jewelry and mixed media art emblazoned with their faces. I love these women similar to how I have crushes on Albert Schweitzer and Henry David Thoreau.

Recently I’ve been thinking about my literary grannies more and more and after finding the opening quote from Anne Sexton, it only seemed right to continue my thoughts in poem form.

I created this prompt as well – which you may also see in my Instragram Feed or on my Writing Camp with JJS facebook page.

For The Others

“I am a collection of dismantled almosts.” 
― Anne Sexton,

Have you heard the debate about 13 reasons why?

I wonder what Anne would say?

I wonder how Sylvia would spin it?

I wonder what Virginia and Sara might chime in when people made statements like “don’t watch” or “you must watch” or “we must talk about this” we must break down the walls.

A slight mist of a memory taps on my fingers.

“Remember Mr. Riordan (not exactly his name – the context here has given him a pseudonym(

gave your paper to the student teacher to grade.

Did she ever say anything to anyone about the story I wrote?

The story of suicide? The months later when I hid in a closet rather than go to school?”

No one said depression back then. No one suggested I might be fragile.

Might benefit from having someone of my own to talk to.

Someone who would listen without being afraid of what might dissolve

If I gave it voice.

My life now, becoming a love letter to her from the future.

I was a collection of dismantled almosts, like Anne.

And like Sylvia, I know the value of expecting nothing from anybody

Except for myself – now.

 “If you expect nothing from anybody, you’re never disappointed.”

Sylvia Plath

This is for you, Anne.

And you, Virginia.

And you, Charlotte.

And you, Sara.

And you, Sylvia.

This is for the women who remain nameless –

= = =

Sara Teasdale is a favorite poet, a prize winning liteary granny, who committed suicide.

I also wrote this as a facebook status/note  after seeing yet another commentary on why we should or shouldn’t watch the controversial Netflix series, “13 Reasons.” Here it is:

I’ve been listening/reading the conversation about “13 Reasons”, the Netflix series about teen suicide. Tonight when I read an article about it and how a counselor at Montclair Public Schools wrote a letter that was sent to all parents in their schools about it.

This reminded me of a short story I wrote in eighth grade about a girl attempting suicide. I got a decent grade, but I remember being disappointed I wasn’t pulled aside to talk. When I hid in a closet for four days during school hours to avoid going to school because I was bullied and taunted, it wasn’t talked about (to me) afterwards either.

After I graduated from Dana Hills high school, four classmates killed themselves. Discussed only in passing.

When Marlena was stillborn and I finally went to therapy and my therapist said the word “depression” in relationship to me I remember hearing my heartbeat crushingly loud in my ears. I could barely hear myself mumble that away. “This is situational…” I think I lasted two more sessions.

We need to talk openly about mental illness and grief. It isn’t drama or manipulation. It isn’t game playing. People with mental illness are not to be avoided and for goodness sakes, don’t ignore them – we all deserve to be heard. When I am in a depressed phase, having no one talk with me is beyond words sad.

I’m sleepy. Just wanted to say this before I went to sleep.

http://www.cnn.com/…/13-reasons-why-teen-suicide-debate-ex…/

Virginia Woolf and her sisters. She also died due to suicide.

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

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-mediaartist  whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people’s creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming through the end of 2016.

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

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How to Find Inspiration – Discover Infinite Topics to Write About Today

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Sometimes you need to find inspiration rather than hoping, wishing and praying inspiration will find you.

This morning I was inspired by the very experience of waking up in a different than normal room. It was a rare all alone morning. I was greeted by the sunrise to and in two hours was terrifically inspired and documenting playfully brought so many rewards, including this exact blog post.

Here is what the morning delivered to Instagram, first take.

Sunday morning in the Tank Room: my notebook, a steaming cup of coffee, windows with fresh chilled air wide open. The pages await.

The sadness and perceived failures of last week are gone. Processing is ongoing. The words are waiting right on the edge of my pen, the paper waits in joyful anticipation.

As a new week begins, take a moment to forgive yourself and have compassion as necessary for what was. Stand in the blessings of what is now – no matter how gloomy or sunny or pale and pasty it looks.

Take out your notebook and write. Start with gratitude or a description of where you are and simply move your pencil. Follow where it leads you.

Tips and Writing Prompt:

Review your weekend for gold nuggets and seeds for writing and reflection. On a fresh page in your writing notebook (or in a document on your computer) start a list from 1 – 10.

Recall moments that are continuing to show up because of either how they felt as they lived them or what your senses told you in the moment of experience.

I have many from this particular weekend because I finally got out of town after a long time of no visits anyplace other than my own four walls and places in the near vicinity, but this experience of nuggets and seeds for writing is something that happens every day, no matter where you are.

I will prove this by providing a list from my own life daily this week so that you may see this practice put into use.

I am setting a timer and giving myself five minutes to complete this list.

Feel free to do a quick review of any images you took, snap chat story pieces you told and Instagram photos and well as tweets and facebook conversations.

I made a fun and short youtube video. Do you want to watch it? Check it out by clicking on the image and visiting Youtube. Subscribe to me there.

These “throwaway” items may be exactly the seeds you need to create some content that inspires and delights your audiences.

I’m setting a timer to get my list done efficiently.

  1. Amtrak to Fresno. Mimosas and for me, What was I doing with my phone?
  2. Walking in the heat, ugh, didn’t like that part.
  3. Poppies
  4. A room of my own – sunrise haven
  5. Living in a tree
  6. Sun-moon-room
  7. Hussle hussle hussle…. J
  8. Undercover Uber
  9. I felt old, so old
  • Little Julie writes in a windowsill
  • Two poems on one morning
  • I manifested this?
  • Syncronicity rules – this roost, this nest I’m finding myself in
  • Agriculture and politics
  • Do I fit in anywhere? No. And it doesn’t matter, really.
  • Why aren’t I doing this?
  • Confidence cluster (build it)
  • The magic carpet backpack
  • Blonde Chicana, cake and I need to connect more
  • Emma’s story intersects with my story
  • Need to reach out to contact Arcadia because that one faculty member won’t let go, isn’t appropriate and is being downright abusive.
  • Midsummer Damn I need to rent you
  • Can there be any more mulberries?
  • Pizza on the street and Chocolate cake in the Zen Meditation Tea room
  • Beer in red cups in a skate shop with a bunch of poets
  • He looked like that guy in 30something? YES! He did!
  • TIME!

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.

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Truth: Writing Always Makes Me Feel Better so Write Even When You Don’t Feel Like Writing

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Write your response – mine is below –

Writing always makes me feel better.

No matter what, even if in the midst of it, I feel like crap – even if I’m sweating and cursing and writing flat out garbage, I know when the day is done I can say “I wrote three hundred words” or “I wrote one decent sentence” or “hell, I threw words on the page and that is something…”

It has to be something.

It is, indeed, something.

Writing always makes me feel better.

I set the timer for five minutes. I take a bite of donut and a gulp of coffee.

I’m writing.

Writing always makes me feel better.

It’s like easing out of a sore throat, drinking the tea and lemon water. It helps. Not always immediately apparent and it helps. I wake up and can speak more clearly. Like with writing. I throw words down, even gobbled gook, and my mind clears, just slightly.

Like sweeping away the mulberries or the darn spider webs that reproduce in Bakersfield when you walk around the block there are suddenly more. Always. Writing always makes me feel better.

Sometimes it’s simply cataloguing: “They changed the chocolate recipe. It is more thick than I like. That girl is being a volunteer and wants to be a nurse. She knew of Sheila “My friends were always talking about her,” they said she said.

That chocolate is too thick. I think I have a chocolate beard now but I keep writing because I know, I know, I know. Writing always makes me feel better.

I think back to when Samuel was first diagnosed.

I think back to when Writing Crew met at 11 every day on twitter and I wrote alongside them every single day or nearly, a sacred call.

Writing always makes me feel better.

Always.

Someone texted me. I am ignoring it because the timer will ring when my five minutes are up and this is where I need to be, not checking my phone, not answering the door, not looking at my bank balance or threatening my son’s teacher. (That last one is totally untrue but I didn’t know where to go with my words and fiction always works in a pinch.)

The timer goes off, piercing, like an annoying alarm on a travel clock I once carried in what feels like someone else’s life.

I notice, I do feel slightly better.

It works.

Writing always makes me feel better.

===

Creative Life Midwife Julie Jordan Scott writes on the road,, when she sits in cafes or in train station. She writes, always.

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.

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How to End Writer’s Block with Another Episode of… the 5 Minute Miracle

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I oftentimes make comments like “I don’t believe in blocks” and “blocks are a mindset thing, switch your mind, block evaporates” and yet here I sit, today, troubled and uncomfortable and squirmy and wishing I could be doing anything in the world EXCEPT writing about blocks but the little inner creativity coach who lives in my chest beside my heart says “Write for five minutes, just the magical five and you will feel better when it’s over than you do right now.”

I set my timer and wrote…

I will feel better, I will feel better I will feel better.

A few minutes ago I was in my backyard, sweeping my driveway. Haven’t done that in much longer than I should have. I swept my walk way yesterday and asked the question, “What would it take to make this a daily practice so that I could see it as a creative endeavor, like writing, which I do almost every day without fail because I enjoy it and it helps me feel better and every once in a while people say I am good at it and…”

WRITING INTERRUPTED BY PHONE AND RETURNED, 30 or so minutes later…

I swept my mulberry trees profuse berries from my neighbor’s driveway because my neighbors are bothered by purple splotches on their driveway and perhaps, the residue on their shoes as a result which brings resultant purple blue into their home.

I did it out of care, this time, not anger as I had in the past.

I had a quick and strong impulse to ask forgiveness from my neighbors and not to make an excuse but to open the conversation to some of the struggles I’ve experienced over the past few years.

Would this help in understanding?

So here’s how it went – My phone went off so my five minutes was interrupted quite suddenly, and now, about forty minutes later I am back and thinking how these interruptions are one of the building materials blocks are made up of – the mortar, the stone work, the inner cords of steel and beams framing it all.

I was anxious when I started and now I feel calmer and the idea I have an option to be vulnerable and speak up to my neighbors is a big one. Also, coming with an energy of seeking forgiveness rather than being angry at them is huge.

The magical five minutes of writing, even broken in two, works miracles again.

 

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Poetry: Love it, Hate it, Bored by It? Let’s play a free association game now —

by

When you see or hear “poetry”: what springs to your mind first? Read this essay to relate to poetry in a useful, reflective way.

I subscribe to a variety of writing websites, read writing instructional books regularly and attempt, always, to be at the forefront of thought around writing so that I may serve my students and workshop participants and coaching clients as well as I possibly can.

I also make it no secret that I am a poet and an actor.

Today I was reading one of my subscriptions, saw this and literally gasped aloud:

“Reading poetry often bothers people. Sometimes poetry feels lofty and pretentious and seems to say, “I know something you don’t know,” which is obnoxious, like an older sister taunting us.”

I was mortified.

“Reading poetry BOTHERS people? How can that be?!” I found myself taking this assertion personally. “How dare they think such a thing! They are missing the fabulousness that is poetry and anyone knows…” and then I thought back to the years when I wrote poetry and neglected to read poetry.

It is sort of like being a selfish-all-about-me person who enjoys other people’s company as long as the focus is solely on what they like and what they want and the conversation revolves around them.

Poetry isn’t like that. At. All. If poetry is a one way “I just write poetry” or “I abstain from all poetry” you are missing out on a huge area of growth as not only a writer or creative, you are shutting yourself off from the sheer pleasure of word play that comes with it.

What if a poem was an invitation?

My father was one of those who didn’t like poetry because he couldn’t “figure it out” and then I wrote a sonnet about hearing my grandather’s voice in a train whistle.

Suddenly poetry – according to my father especially poetry written by me – was enjoyable and easy to understand.

Let’s take a moment to free associatie – I will share three lines of poetry, one at a time.

When you read a line, jot notes of how you connect with those words.

“We have the town we call home wakening for dawn which isn’t here yet but is promised.”

Philip Levine

Make associations – what words do you connect with here? What do you see in your mind’s eye from this one line of poetry?

“The grass never sleeps”

Mary Oliver

Associations, please.

“I saw you in a dream last night –

Quiet and pale, but still my handsome cousin.”

Dana Gioia

Associate (Do you have a handsome cousin?)

“Time for gardening again; for poetry”

Margaret Atwood

More associations – play!

I just pulled random collections of poetry from my shelves, opened them, and wrote the first lines I saw. I didn’t have to hunt for inviting word sections or the easier to understand lines or the ‘dumbed down” versions.

See, what I love about poetry is the simplicity I find there, the purity and the relationship between me and the words and by association the poet. Three of  the poets I chose are currently living, breathing this same air I breathe, standing on the same ground I stand upon albeit in different spaces. Phillip Levine died in 2015 in Fresno, California not far from where I live in Bakersfield. Have you been to Fresno? The most unpretentious people you have ever met live there.

Dana Gioia and I had a conversation in December but I doubt he remembers me. I became a fourteen-year-old girl holding a copy of a fan magazine when I spoke to him. Giddy, with rapid speech, nervous about my choice of outfit and wishing I had taken more time with my appearance when we spoke. He is the current poety laureate of the state of California and the word craft in his poetry makes me swoon.

There is a new television show starting based on one of Margaret Atwood’s books.

Mary Oliver is a Pulitzer Prize winner.

Philip Levine is also a Pultizer Prize Winner who chose to focus on the working class in his poetry and the place of his birth, Detroit, was one of his central inspirations.

I went back to the article that started this train of thought and discovered a shift there, as well.

“If we keep reading, poetry often moves us in ways a paragraph can’t. It requires a compression of language and meaning, tucked inside precise words that create concrete images. Poets, with a wink and a wry smile, trust us to read well.” Joe Bunting, TheWritePractice.com

Share in the comments what words you free associate with POETRY. Whatever you think or feel, let it drip onto the comments here. This is going to be fun. Let’s read your thoughts now – 

Coming Up: 30 Days of Writing Passionately

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 in the margins above 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.

 

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