Creative Life Midwife

Inspiring Artistic Rebirth

Writing Flash Fiction for Fun to Ignite Memories for Life Writing (and even a Bonus Video!)

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I didn’t feel like writing today. I am tired and more than a little bit grumpy AND I knew if I showed up at the page, anyway, something would happen.

I took a prompt from a community I am in and used it differently than expected. I don’t know why I felt like writing some very short fiction, but I did. From writing fiction, a memory of early childhood popped up wanting to be heard.

Show up at the page consistently and writing magic will happen.

I went from not wanting to write to having an a-ha simply because I showed up (even though I didn’t want to show up and write.)

I know not everyone agrees with the belief if you show up at the page everyday, your writing will improve. I believe some writing every day is better than no writing, anyday.

There is gold dust in this advice for me – is there any for you? Here are the steps I took on this day when I didn’t feel like writing.

Step One: Write Very Short Fiction Vignette

Laura felt herself shift slightly in her seat, not consciously meaning to shake off the nagging anxiety as she looked at Maureen’s instagram worthy kitchen. The simple act of pouring a cup of coffee was an artform to Maureen. She didn’t mean to make Laura feel anything but welcome.

“I have loved being here in Salem since Tom and I arrived last Spring,” bubbled Maureen, her words as effervescent as her kitchen decor. “I joined the women’s book club and the progressive dinner we have every month, are you interested to join us?”

Laura opened her mouth to respond but before she could say anything, Maureen continued speaking, “There’s no need for you to feel out of place. We don’t have many single women in the neighborhood… unless you count Barbara… and she is around eighty-years-old, after all, and a widow but she still sets an incredible table and bakes brownies like nobody’s business!”

Maureen made excellent coffee, dressed beautifully and seemed to be lonelier than she appeared, but Laura wasn’t sure coming over here was such a good idea. She sipped her coffee, attempting to look dainty and interested in the conversational monologue.

“We read “Little Fires Everywhere” last month. One of the primary characters was single and an artist, like you!” Maureen laughed.

“I loved ‘Little Fires,’ too.” she answered. “The Hulu series terrified me, though.”

Maureen’s neck stiffened and her eyebrows knit together. “Oh, I don’t watch much TV. Tom and I prefer reading or playing board games in the evening.”

Laura took a larger gulp of coffee and stopped hiding her awkwardness. Now is the time, she decided, to stop being herself and embody one of her more bubbly, Stepford Wives-like characters from her best selling cozy mystery series, “Crab Apple Cove Coffee Shop Girls”

“Really? Me, too! Do you like puzzles?” 

This lightened Maureen’s face right back into her happy hostess mode and the rest of the afternoon was an uneventful coo-and-awww party about the wonders of how to nurture a relationship with one’s accountant husband. 

At least Laura walked away with a new character sketch for her next novel. When Maureen said goodbye she was convinced she had made a life-long friend.

Step 2: Write a Vignette from your life: a mini-memoir

It’s surprising the memories that rise to the surface through visual imagery and storytelling. When I saw this image I wanted to replicate it in my world at first. Being new to Sussex, I have yet to make any “meet me for coffee” friends – though I trust I will soon.

I remembered as I wrote the fiction vignette how when I was a little girl, my mother was in the Junior League. Oftentimes the children who weren’t in school yet would tag along to the morning coffee meetings where the ladies would discuss their projects.

I think they were doing some sort of entertainment and my mother brought a bling-bling headband that wasn’t quite fancy enough for the character who became Maureen in the story. I remember even as a pre-schooler I realized my mother was hurt and felt less-than under the eyes of her fellow Junior-Leaguer.

Shauna Niequist said, “True hospitality is when people leave feeling better about themselves and not better about you.”

Neither the woman from nearly six decades ago did this for my mother nor did Maureen do this for Laura, even though Laura walked away with a new character sketch!

Step 3: Add some bonuses, like an engagement question and a video:

How can your events be more hospitable to those who attend, even if it is a simple cup of coffee one-on-one in a coffee shop or working with other women at a holiday fundraising event?

You might notice I even used the same graphic for the video cover and the featured image for this blog post. In less than an hour and a half, I have content I may reuse and repurpose – and made a good use of time on a day when I “didn’t feel like it”.

Below the video, you can see a place to join the Writing Group I mention in the video – a space where you may also receive writing prompts and community, the Let Our Words Flow Creative Community. I hope you will join us!

Julie JordanScott is a Creative Life Coach, an award-winning storyteller, actor and poet whose photos and mixed media art graces the walls of collectors across the United States. Her writing has appeared on the New York Times Best Sellers List, the Amazon best sellers list and on American Greetings Holiday cards (and other greeting cards). She currently lives in a manse in Sussex, NJ, where she is working on finishing her most recent book project, hugging trees daily and enjoys having random inspirational conversations with strangers.

Follow on Instagram to Watch IGTV exclusive videos, stories and posts about writing and the creative process.

Let our Words Flow Writing Community: the only one missing is you! Join us in the Private Writing Group by clicking here.

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Top 7 Writing Micro-Goals for Creative Entrepreneurs

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I’ve seen this happen with more of my coaching, healing arts and creative entrepreneur clients than I can count – and I have even done it myself. We plunk down at our desks at our designated writing times and absolutely nothing happens.

Here’s the thing: creating a small, micro-goal specifically aimed to help you with consistent content creation is deceptively simple. Try one of these on for a week. If it doesn’t appeal, try a different one for seven days. Repeat as necessary.

My secret success is from having one solid “writing not for content but for exercising the writing muscle” practice, for me it is a daily stream of conscious journaling in the morning, and then have a second micro goal I mix up and serve differently, like a writing buffet.

Watch the video here and read below for more details for each tip.

  1. My newest accidental micro-goal is a daily #RollOverandWrite. That’s it. Wake up, roll over and pick up the notebook you placed at your bedside before you went to sleep and write a few sentences.
  1. Write an affirmative intention daily in the morning. “I am capable of writing effective blog posts.” “People enjoy what I write.” “My sales letter is both effective and engaging.”
  1. Exercise for 20 minutes and write immediately after. Set up your writing space before you go for your walk, job or attend your zumba class. If you work out someplace besides your home, bring a notebook with you and write in your car or at the gym or at a picnic table in the park. Your subconscious is watching to see how important your writing is to you by the consistent time you give it.
  1. Journal/free write for a set amount of time or set number of words/pages each day. You may write as few as 250 words (approximately one page) or for three minutes. The amount of writing matters less than simply flowing with your writing rather than attempting to mold it or edit as you go along. That comes later – and believe me, if you can get the words on the page to begin with, editing will come easily.
  1. To practice writing concisely and with the most writing “bang for your buck” write a daily haiku, six word story or American Sentence poem. Any of this “very micro writing” will help you be use your best words. It will help you write compelling copy and/or characters with a more curated conversational style than you may usually write. It will teach you to cut out unnecessary words that often bog down our readers.
  1. Write a 5 item gratitude list before you go to sleep. You may also make a list of “What went well today” or “5 Good Things that happened today” list. Thesetrain your brain to focus on what is constructive and helpful in your life. A bonus is the subject of each item on the list may easily become a blog post, a social media post or a chapter in a book or poem.
  1. Use a timer to write 5 minutes a day for 5 consecutive days, #5for5BrainDump style. You may try unprompted or prompted writing. In the Let Our Words Flow Creative Community we have prompts and videos to guide you as you practice this – plus it is free to join the group which also has a thriving community, lots of tips, video teachings and daily discussion for creative entrepreneurs.

Julie JordanScott is a multipassionate creative who delights in inviting others into their own fullhearted. artistic experience via her creativity coaching individually or in groups, courses and workshops. To receive inspiring content and videos weekly and find out more about Coaching, Courses, Challenges and what’s going on in the Creative Life Midwife world? Subscribe here:

Follow on Instagram to Watch IGTV exclusive videos, stories and posts about writing and the creative process.

Let our Words Flow Writing Community: the only one missing is you! Join us in the Private Writing Group by clicking here.

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Explore “Everyday” Passion, Even During These Pandemic Times

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You might think to yourself, as many do, passion is this huge experience, this mountain-top time of pure, unadulterated delight. 

Today, I am inviting you into everyday, ordinary passion – because this is the space in which life may begin to truly feel vivid and refreshed and ready to be lived again, even in the midst of this negative, life abrupting pandemic time. At the bottom of this blog post, there is even a mini-writing workshop video so you may try the prompt right here and now, “almost live”.

It happened again to me this morning. I was feeling very committed to staying grouchy. I was resentful of the oppressive heat rolling through California which kept me from walking around outside to keep up my daily walking practice. I discovered I was self-triggering when I walk inside because in the past I only walked like that when I was excessively agitated.

I did it anyway. I walked around the house – up and down the hallway, into the dining room, a swing through the kitchen and back again. Up down and around. Up down and around. Up down and around.

As I was walking I thought about an art challenge and my ideas for today’s prompt. Surprisingly I didn’t think how bad my idea was in relationship to others I had seen so far. I walked my loop a few more times before plopping myself into a chair at my project table and simply starting to make a tiny work of art.

I didn’t think about what I was doing, I simply did it.

My thoughts left, my inner grumbling silenced, my first mistake was tossed aside and then I was finished almost as quickly as it took to get started.

Now I had a smile on my face. 

Now I wasn’t grumpy.

Now I was ready to get the other tasks done on my to-do list.

Now I was looking forward to the rest of my day.

This, my friends, is ordinary passion.

This, my friends, is how something so plain and minor and insignificant can become a method to making the best from a challenging time.

Mary Oliver said, “Let the world have its way with you, luminous as it is – with mystery and pain,  graced as it is with the ordinary.”

Instead of stopping your natural rhythm and flow by staying committed to the blahs and blocks which may have been holding you back, now is your time to grace your life with your ordinary passion – and before you know it, the everyday stuff of life will shine. The everyday, mundane, not-even-energizing-enough-to-be-annoying will become a gift. 

You may choose to grow from your pain.  You may choose to breathe life into the ordinary.

Imagine it: mundane moments, becoming fertile ground for passion. Extraordinary-ordinary passion is in your everyday life.

Let’s write about it,together.

Think about the “little things” you really enjoy.

Walking past the rosemary bush with its hauntingly inviting scent.

That moment when you step into the shower after a long day at work or at the beach (or the moment you step out of the shower.)

Your first sip of cold water after a run.

That moment when you finish a puzzle or a project or a game that makes you smile so wide you’re glad you have ears so your smile won’t wrap around your head.

This is the world, having its luminous way with you.

Let’s write it:

My recent moment of everyday passion was when _______. What made me feel so happy was…… (and now, you write, starting with writing for five minutes reliving that experience of everyday passion. Write the details, keeping them as engaging as possible.)

We’re ending your blahs and blocks that so many are experiencing right now by using inspiring, mind-and-heart opening prompts that will help you gain clarity about what is the most important right now.

If you want to continue exploring and feeling better instead of worse, join us for our #5for5BrainDump experience. Writing for just 5 minutes a day for 5 consecutive days with curated prompts for exploration.

Would you like to participate? Two ways to do so. One is by receiving an email every day when #5for5BrainDumps are in session. The other is by joining our Word-Love Facebook Community.

Both options are available right here:

To receive an email with a private video message and writing tips, please subscribe to our #5for5BrainDump Email List:

To participate in conversation with other participants, join the Word-Love Writing Community Facebook Group where the conversation and livesteam sessions will be accessed in a safe, private writing community.

Portrait of creative life coach and creative life midwife Julie JordanScott

Julie JordanScott, the Creative Life Midwife, is a writer, a poet performer, a Creativity Coach, A Social Media Whiz and a Mother of three. One of her greatest joys include loving people into their greatness they just aren’t quite able to realize yet. 

Julie is also one of the Founders of Bridge to the New Year. Access the visionary prompst from the mid-2020 in #Refresh2020 to reflect, connect, intend and taking passionate action to create a truly remarkable rest of 2020. 

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