A new start, a new hope

In my writing workshop I went to on Wednesday night was really good. The instructor said the best advice he could give is just to sit down and write every day even if it was just for fifteen minutes. On Thursday, my day off, I am pleased to say I got done more than fifteen minutes. It is good advice to any writer, just keep writing... it doesn't matter if it is good or not but it is always important to touch pen to paper. 

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A new start, a new hope

It did not take long for Iris to find Emmy, she remembered that when Emmy was a child she would always run into the library and pull herself into a corner and hide a way only to come out when she thought no one was looking for her. That is where Iris found Emmy tucked away in the space between the shelves and space between the shelves and the wall. Only now she was bigger and her dresses were bigger too. Iris heard her little whimper when she came into the library and started the game she always played with Emmy when she was younger.
            "I don't see Miss Emmy, she must not be here. Oh wait what was that a bird chirping or a little girl crying."
            "You know I am in here Aunt Iris, I am not a child any more those games won't work on me."
            "I know you are not a child anymore, I just cannot see you going through so much pain I thought I would one of our old games would cheer you up."
            "Cheer me up from forgetting the one man I loved has left me."
            "No, of course not. I have only loved one man, so I can't understand what you are going through but from what I understand about love if it is true it won't ever go away."
            At that Emmy threw herself on Aunt Iris. Iris caught her in a hug and was able to guide her over to the sofa where she could have Emmy's head resting on her lap. Iris did not try to hush her but let her cry until she was all out of tears all the while going back and forth between stroking her hair and patting her back. When Emmy had stopped crying Iris spoke very softly to her.
            "There, there my little Emmy. No matter what happened I am her for you. I have loved you all your life and I will never leave you. I think you and Laurel should come to Boston, it may not cheer you up however it will get you out of this house where everything reminds you of him. Plus with your cousin, Nicholas, marrying Caleb's sister I am sure he will be at the wedding and you two can be reunited. Whatever silliness came over him, I am sure your charm you can knock it out."
            "Oh Aunt, do you really think so, Do you really want Laurel and I to come to Boston."
            "I came to Pine Haven with no other desire in mind. My house is so lonely without my Cromwell girls running in and out and now you being out in society I can show you off properly."

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"A new start, a new hope"

Guest Blogger 2

I am excited to announce my second guest blog post.

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Earlier this month Laura wrote a post about what she wanted to be when she grew up. I was so inspired by her post I decided to share with her what I wanted to be when I grew up in my post "What do you want to be?" It was lots of fun writing this post remembering all the things I thought I wanted to be from a ballerina, a train conductor, to now pursing my Masters in Library Science while filling up note books of stories. Life is an interesting journey. Hope you will go over her to her blog and enjoy.

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I have enjoyed both having guest bloggers and writing guest blogs. Please contact me if you too would like to be a guest blogger. This has been such fun for me to share other people's stories and adventures. I would love to share yours, rather you are a regular blogger or not I would love to share your writing. 

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Guest Blogger

I am so excited to announce that today I am a guest blogger!!!

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Earlier this month Kimberly wrote a guest post for me. The post called "We all have a writing story" and she was kind enough to let me to guest blog for her. My post is My Journey Through Reading where I discuss some influential books in my life.

Writing workshop

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Last night I went to a creative writing workshop sponsored by my church. It was a small group but it was great meeting other writers. Writing can some times be a lonely activity so it is fun getting together and hearing other people's thoughts. 

We went through some exercises to get our thoughts out on paper. We focused on our memories to maybe use for a story, but mostly just to get thoughts on our paper. Our second exercise was called "The Old 'Hood". On a piece of paper, we drew a 1/2-inch square somewhere in the middle of the page. This represents the house you grew up in. 

Surrounding that square, draw what you can remember of the neighborhood where you grew up. Draw houses, streets, landmarks, etc. (from a bird's eye perspective). Be thorough, but don't worry about detail, and no one will see it, so you it doesn't have to be pretty. Just show what goes where roughly. Then do the following:

• In 3 minutes, make a list all the people who live on that map.
• Pick 3 people and write down one memory of each.
• Pick 1 of those people and write down three more memories.
• Pick 1 of those memories and write about it. As much as possible.

I picked my best friend from my child home Katie. It was a great little exercise and I thought I would share my more polished answer with you...

My best friend Katie and I were always together, we lived next door to each other and we were always running in between each other's houses.  I don't remember any one being around us, everyone else around us just seemed too busy to really be in our lives, she had four brothers and my mom was a single working mom so when we were together it was just us. I remember together we never had to look perfect or stylish. She had long dark hair and she never worried about it being messed up, she just pushed it away. And we never worried about having perfect clothes, our parents didn't have a lot of money so we were mostly stuck with hand-me-downs or clothes that were bought at good will and we were okay with that. I thought she was such a tomboy the way she always wanted to play Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (she was the yellow one, I was the pink one) and she never minded getting pushed around by her brothers. But we also played Barbies together, and she introduced me to Alanis Morisette (who I thought was so rock then). Some of my 

favorite memories with her were on my swing set racing to see who could see over the fence the fastest. We could be out on her trampoline or my swing set until sun down and I always remember it being summer so sunset was pretty late. 

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I really enjoyed the exercises in dealing with memory. I hope if any more writing workshops come up I can go because I think it is really important to have a writing community.