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Creative Life Midwife

Inspiring Artistic Rebirth

Stories are Waiting to Be Heard: Are You Listening?

March 9, 2020 by jjscreativelifemidwife

What makes us better story tellers?

Ever since I was a little girl, I loved listening to stories. As I grew older, I fell in love with telling stories, both written and spoken. There is something sacred especially in telling about a moment in time in your life when something happened – something clicked and you knew… something you hadn’t known a moment before. It is in that knowing something new, that a-ha or epiphany moment that compels us to share whatever it was because we know, we just know, this may be a contribution to someone else.

It isn’t always easy to find a place to share our stories: with grown children there isn’t shared mealtime anymore and my friends are often busy with their own thing so when we are together we are sitting in a dark movie theater or seeing a play or talking about minutia rather than what matters.

As I wrote these words, I realized there is an a-ha within this situation itself. On those occasions when my stories are heard by others who value what I am saying, I feel my most alive. I feel valued, I feel worthy, I feel grateful to have people taking me and my message seriously.

I am a member of toastmasters so I have a regular, formal outlet for sharing curated stories which are then evaluated and assessed by my peers. This is helpful and heart opening and it isn’t necessarily the same as sitting around a circle for hours, speaking and listening with laughter and sometimes tears punctuating the vulnerable connections made because we are listening and speaking with our hearts.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we spent more time listening and speaking for no reason except for the joy of it?

Prompt for Writing, Creating, Conversation or Contemplation:

“When people listen to my stories, I feel…”

“When I listen to other people’s stories, I feel….”

5 Minute Writing Prompt: I remember the time last Fall when…. write about anything at all for five minutes without stopping, using shopping, Thanksgiving, Halloween or an unexpected surprise as your topic.

Julie JordanScott looks to heaven as she takes a pause in her writing.

Julie JordanScott is the Creative Life Midwife. A writer, speaker, life coach and multi-creative who “walks her talk” she provides the world fuel for creativity, intentional connection and purposeful passion in order to eradicate loneliness and the symptoms of anxiety and depression.

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Filed Under: Storytelling, Writing Prompt, Writing Tips Tagged With: Listening, Toastmasters, Women Writers

Truth or…. Consequences? Better Writing? Freedom? Vulnerability?

February 16, 2020 by jjscreativelifemidwife

What truth am I ready to tell?

I feel increased frustration. Why did I write this prompt?

Why did I decide to write from it first instead of offering it to other people first?

How am I supposed to even begin talking (or) writing (or) be willing to be vulnerable enough to take this one in any decent narrative?

Right in that moment I wanted to shut down completely, but something jostled me so I finally stop worrying about narrative or getting it right or anything except filling the five minutes with the tapping on the keyboard.

Five minutes on the timer and… write. I started with something easy to address, something obvious.

I am ready to tell the truth… I am happier with my hair colored than when I was attempting to grow it into its natural state.

Maybe if I hadn’t gotten sick I would be rushing back to going grey/white again but I simply feel more bright spirited with my hair the color it is now – I actually feel more freedom to experiment with it again.

In all honesty, the only thing I liked about my grey adventure was the whitest part of my hair and the purple streak Jolie painted into my hair every time I visited her.

Other than that, I felt pretty hideous about my appearance most if not all of the time. I stopped looking at myself in mirrors. It certainly didn’t help with the overall malaise I was feeling.

I am not ready to tell the full truth of my near-death experience in October. Recently I found myself quite willing to tell one friend more details than normal. That was a surprise and actually felt optimistic and eye-opening.

I am ready to tell the truth of my anger about some of what I observe in special education. I am ready to tell the truth (with some changed names) in the book I am finally editing – again.

Again, more truth tumbles out: when I reviewed the last edits, I will tell you the truth that version of me had it a lot of it wrong. J Sometimes when editing, our true writing voice gets sucked dry. That’s not what this book is about, especially.

This book is messy and tired and frustrated and ebullient.

I am ready to tell the truth – and grow in my ability to share what I feel and know and think – without fear of retribution and abandonment.

Truthfully, I am stronger to face both of those because I have experienced both abandonment and retribution and discovered through the process I am bolder and more resilient than I could have ever known without them.

Five minutes later – time is up and I feel infinitely better than I did when I sat down to write.

What a joy!

And now it is your turn to write:

  • What truth are you ready to tell right now?
  • TIPS:
  • Start with an “easy” truth if you have any hesitation, like I did with my grey hair. You might start with “I don’t like broccoli” or “I love watching the Bachelor.
  • Keep writing until the five minutes are up.
  • Allow yourself to follow the flow of the pencil (or pen or fingers on the keyboard). They will take the writing where it needs to go.

Julie JordanScott, the Creative Life Midwife, is committed to Eradicate Loneliness through intentional connection, passionate purpose and creative expression. Sign up now to stay connected with the movement and receive inspirational emails to insure you will minimize loneliness for yourself and those you love. Visit EradicateLoneliness now to sign up for free.

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Filed Under: Creative Adventures, Creative Life Coaching, Creative Process, Intention/Connection, Intention/Connection, Rewriting the Narrative, Self Care, Writing Prompt Tagged With: Muriel Rukeyser, Muriel Rukeyser Quote, Women Writers

A is for Ada: Literary Grannies from A to Z/2018 #atozchallenge

April 1, 2018 by jjscreativelifemidwife

Please welcome Ada Lovelace, the first purely STEM writer to grace the Literary Grannies canon.

Ironically she is the daughter of 19th Century rockstar poet, Lord Byron, who she never met. She was entranced by the man whose portrait hung covered in her mother’s home, but her mother was so consumed with not wanting her daughter to be a fanciful poet, she hired tutors in mathematics in order to distract her daughter’s possibly poetic mind.

Ada instead created a fanciful flying machine, meticulously designed with her brilliant mathematical (and my best guess also lyrical mind).

Her mother worried needlessly about Ada, who teamed up with Charles Babbage who devised the plans for “The Analytical Machine” – a general purpose computer. Ada saw the applications for the Analytical machine could go much further than computation and she published the first algorithm and instructions for how to use it with more depth.

Ada is the first STEM writer to appear among Literary Grannies and the first since I stared CreativeLifeMidwife.com.

Her full name was Augusta Ada King-Noel, Countess of Lovelace. She was born December 12, 1815 and died November  27, 1852

Writing Prompt: Think back to what your mother hoped for you when you were a child? How does that differ from who you are now (or how is it the same)? Write about it – take 5 minutes and write, free flow style. 

Julie has participated in the A to Z Blog Challenge for several years and is thrilled to be back, once again with Literary Grannies. Follow here throughout April for blog posts featuring women of literary history along with a daily writing prompt that reflects each featured writer.

Julie Jordan Scott is the Creative Life Midwife: a writing coach who specializes in inspiring artistic rebirth for those who may have forgotten the pure joy of the creative process. She offers individual creativity coaching as well as creating individualized programs for businesses and groups in the form of workshops, webinars and more. Contact her at 661.444.2735 for immediate assistance with facilitation, speaking or experiencing an enriched life now.Facebooktwitterpinterest

Filed Under: 2018, Creative Adventures, Literary Grannies, Poetry, Storytelling Tagged With: Literary Grannies, Literary History, Women Writers

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?

  1. 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.

  1. 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.

  1. 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.

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Filed Under: Literary Grannies, Writing Challenges & Play, Writing Tips Tagged With: Laura Ingalls Wilder, Ursula K. Le Guin, Women Writers, Writing tips from Laura Ingalls Wilder

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How to Use Your Text & Other “Throwaway Writing” to Make All Your Writing Easier.

Trust in Creativity: Start with What’s Wrong

Self-Forgiveness: Often Forgotten, Always Worthwhile.

Beliefs: Review and Revise is it time? A clock face that needs revision with a bridge in the background.

Your Beliefs: Foundations of Your Creative Path to Peace

Introduction to “The Creative Path to Peace”

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