Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Feeling Introverted: One Writer's Journey

I wake up every morning with a groggy feeling sitting stagnant in my body.  No it isn't time to wake up yet is it?   While I'm having my first cup of coffee, I get the kids off to school and John off to work. If I'm lucky, like right now, I get a little quiet time before the little kids wake up and want breakfast.

There is no such thing as ever lasting peace and quiet in my house though. One by one my two little ones wake up. My daughter Carolyne always asks to eat breakfast right away. You would think she never eats the way she acts sometimes. When I don't move right then, she gets a small frown on her face and her forehead wrinkles. With her arms crossed she responds, "But I'm hungry now mommy."

To which I reply, "It will be a few minutes. Sit down and wake up first."

Trystan, my two year old, always wants to cuddle when he wakes up. It's so sweet. He immediately looks for me and climbs into my lap no matter what I'm doing. I don't mind though because I know he's going to grow up and want little to do with me.

Once they are finished with their morning routine, I finally get a chance to sit and think about what I want to do and what I need to do. Writing is always at the top of the list. Of course it is. I have to giggle at this a little because I can't think of a day that has past where I didn't write something. A poem, a little piece of flash fiction or even a journal entry has been written everyday since I can remember.

My first experience at writing a story came when I was in third grade. We had to make up a story. Mine was about a piece of chalk that came to life and drew me a magical world with a unicorn. Yes I still believed in unicorns back then. In a way, I still do. Fairies too, but that is for another time.

For those who don't know, I didn't learn to read or write until I was 8 years old. I didn't know the alphabet and I had no idea what a vowel was. I couldn't see. Everything in my life was a blur and some how I had been passed over time and again in school labeled with the term "Slow." In truth, I wasn't slow at all. I just thought the teacher was playing a game when she would point to things on the chalk board.

A whole new world opened up to me when I received my first pair of glasses. Trees were sharper and oh my good, the boys were actually cute. All that time, people were nothing but blobs of color that moved around in a frantic manner. I had no idea faces existed. Observation became my new game. Little did I know then how much of an impact it would have on my life.

If you are a writer or even want to be one, I would love to hear about an observation you experienced. To this day, I still play my little observation game. I sit with a pen and note pad in hand and I write what I see. The way a shadow plays with the light or how a person walks down the street in an easy going slow pace without a worry in the world, all of those come in handy. They become what we see in our characters. Write an observation about the way your children play with others. I promise this is one you will cherish for years to come. Your observations will become the images from the everyday life we all take for granted. They will bring what you write to life. 

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