   | ||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
||||
I told you all awhile back that I was learning the art of Creative Lettering. Yes, well that WAS true, but then I fell into the well of creative distractions, to avoid the headlines and to run away from HOME. My WRITING home. The place where I go to stay SANE.
It is so easy to procrastinate. To make lists only to finish the items at the bottom, while the number one priority continues lurking at the top.
However, a simple case of stomach flu, can disable the best of us. Allow weakened muscles to relax, and to literally drop the pen. Which I did.
Luckily I had enough strength left to do a bit of research. A touch of homework to help me get back in the groove. Which resulted in the following letter to any and all aspiring, yet blocked writers like myself. It is a stream of consciousness bit of rambling, but perhaps you will find it a worthwhile ride. It might even trigger a flashpoint for you as it did for me.
Dear Writer Wanna Be,
Write the world through a child’s eyes, fresh for-the-first time images, sights and sounds reinvented in child speak.
Start small.
Write about what you know.
Write about what you love.
Write local.
Write a book review.
Write a novel parody.
Write a song.
Write Ad Copy for an Only Seen On TV product, the more absurd the better…think Snuggies.
Create a writing space. Set the mood. Music or no. Headphones. Cut out the distractions. Just PLAY.
Write in ink in long hand on a yellow tablet.
Write in magic markers on large blank sheets of butcher paper.
Luckily I had enough strength left to do a bit of research. A touch of homework to help me get back in the groove. Which resulted in the following letter to any and all aspiring, yet blocked writers like myself. It is a stream of consciousness bit of rambling, but perhaps you will find it a worthwhile ride. It might even trigger a flashpoint for you as it did for me.
Dear Writer Wanna Be,
Write the world through a child’s eyes, fresh for-the-first time images, sights and sounds reinvented in child speak.
Start small.
Write about what you know.
Write about what you love.
Write local.
Write a book review.
Write a novel parody.
Write a song.
Write Ad Copy for an Only Seen On TV product, the more absurd the better…think Snuggies.
Create a writing space. Set the mood. Music or no. Headphones. Cut out the distractions. Just PLAY.
Write in ink in long hand on a yellow tablet.
Write in magic markers on large blank sheets of butcher paper.
Use an old typewriter.
Discover your favorite font.
Doodle Art in the margins.
Dictate into a tape recorder. Your very first podcast.
Discover your favorite font.
Doodle Art in the margins.
Dictate into a tape recorder. Your very first podcast.
Keep a NOTEBOOK with you at all times, especially beside the bed. You’ll tell yourself that you’ll remember in the morning, but you WON’T. Oh, and a PEN.
Write a letter to someone you love.
Write a letter to someone you can’t forget, but wish you could.
Write about cooking with kale for the first time and the last.
Pull up photos. Caption them. Write a photo story.
Write about your favorite TV show, when you were a kid.
Write about something that scares you.
Write about BACON.
If you need music in the background, don’t use anything with lyrics. They mess up your head and your concentration. Too many neurons firing all at the same time.
Mine your life. Dig up a memory. An event that changed your life.
Write about anger, What color is it? How does it sound? Where do you feel it most in your body?
Celebrate your otherworldliness. Remember that MOST if not ALL writers are misfits.
Treasure yourself for loving words, languages, dialects, conversations, arguments, affirmations, chaos and resolutions.
Write about the power of VINYL .
Think about your readers. Will they identify, recognize something familiar in your work? If they do, they’ll recognize you as a friend they would like to get to know better.
Find your VOICE.
Be prepared to WAIT.
Write a letter to someone you love.
Write a letter to someone you can’t forget, but wish you could.
Write about cooking with kale for the first time and the last.
Pull up photos. Caption them. Write a photo story.
Write about your favorite TV show, when you were a kid.
Write about something that scares you.
Write about BACON.
If you need music in the background, don’t use anything with lyrics. They mess up your head and your concentration. Too many neurons firing all at the same time.
Mine your life. Dig up a memory. An event that changed your life.
Write about anger, What color is it? How does it sound? Where do you feel it most in your body?
Celebrate your otherworldliness. Remember that MOST if not ALL writers are misfits.
Treasure yourself for loving words, languages, dialects, conversations, arguments, affirmations, chaos and resolutions.
Write about the power of VINYL .
Think about your readers. Will they identify, recognize something familiar in your work? If they do, they’ll recognize you as a friend they would like to get to know better.
Find your VOICE.
Be prepared to WAIT.
It takes PRACTICE.
Play to your strengths. Humor. Devilish dialogue. Strong characters. Intrigue. Sarcasm.
Develop your Point Of View Writing Style.
First Person POV= I…I…I
Third Person POV= I own this guy’s head and heart.
Crown your work with a TITLE. The Title needs to be a Lottery Winner. It is the tongue sticking out on the bookshelf, nagging PICK ME. READ ME.
Remember please…it is so much fun to make stuff up.
Be sure to have pockets full of kindness and compassion. Every character has at least one redeeming quality. Find it. Even if it is a villain, try walking around in his shoes. Then take his shoes off and rub his aching feet.
Set the table. Practice writing settings and locations. Describe scenes so vivid, your reader can SEE the view outside your window,
P.S. Do Not Forget your love of POETRY. Music, lyrics to a song that you hum along to in the car. A few stanzas that deliver the message in short but sweet repeating rhymes.
You love to read. Read EVERYTHING. Even the back of cereal boxes at breakfast.
Write when you are worried. It helps to sort yourself out, and can make worries wither from enormous to not-so-much.
In the beginning, write FOR YOUR EYES ONLY. Good writing is private until you are ready to publish.
Play to your strengths. Humor. Devilish dialogue. Strong characters. Intrigue. Sarcasm.
Develop your Point Of View Writing Style.
First Person POV= I…I…I
Third Person POV= I own this guy’s head and heart.
Crown your work with a TITLE. The Title needs to be a Lottery Winner. It is the tongue sticking out on the bookshelf, nagging PICK ME. READ ME.
Remember please…it is so much fun to make stuff up.
Be sure to have pockets full of kindness and compassion. Every character has at least one redeeming quality. Find it. Even if it is a villain, try walking around in his shoes. Then take his shoes off and rub his aching feet.
Set the table. Practice writing settings and locations. Describe scenes so vivid, your reader can SEE the view outside your window,
P.S. Do Not Forget your love of POETRY. Music, lyrics to a song that you hum along to in the car. A few stanzas that deliver the message in short but sweet repeating rhymes.
You love to read. Read EVERYTHING. Even the back of cereal boxes at breakfast.
Write when you are worried. It helps to sort yourself out, and can make worries wither from enormous to not-so-much.
In the beginning, write FOR YOUR EYES ONLY. Good writing is private until you are ready to publish.
Turn off technology. Tune OUT to TUNE in.
Finally. Phew!
Become a wordsmith. Invest in a thesaurus, a book of cliches. Be a WORD NERD. Use historical and hysterical vocabulary.
Finally. Phew!
Become a wordsmith. Invest in a thesaurus, a book of cliches. Be a WORD NERD. Use historical and hysterical vocabulary.
The End….
Or...
Labels: ad copy, Creative Lettering, humor, podcast, point of view, sarcasm, titles, voice, writer's block, writing
Wednesday, March 15, 2017
I am taking an online class in Creative Lettering. I spend hours on You Tube watching clever creative DIY types demonstrate techniques and ideas to hand letter in my OWN style. Illuminating letters. Negative Illumination. Chalk Lettering. Lettering in ink, acrylic paint, and digitally. Filigrees. Florals. Swoops and Flourishes.
Then it is time to practice. My mind skips a beat. An old tune emerges. Remember when? Eleven years ago to be exact, when I needed illustrations to complete the Garden Pages. My Garden Pages. With watercolor images of the treasures of the garden painted to perfection by my own hand.
A disaster.
Of epic proportions.
I can describe my garden to you. I can feel my garden living here in my heart. I know each and every one of my garden pals, including the pests, by name. I speak their language. We coexist, side by side. I nurture them, they feed my soul.
I could be kind to myself and describe my watercolor renderings as impressionistic or abstract. However, as I must be honest with you if I am to be honest with myself, my painting is worse than a three year old’s crayon drawing. Ask any three year old to describe their painting, and after a moment, you can see the gist of their early efforts. The yellow blob is the sun. The streak of blue is the sky.
If I explained my painting to you...you would listen thoughtfully...then say to yourself...
Blobs. Streaks. Shapeless forms. What is this???
Thus, I resorted to photography and playfulness.
So why? Why now am I walking down the same path with lettering?
It will not end well.
So there you have my history.
Now you need to understand my hysteria.
I have beautiful handwriting. I learned by rote. The Palmer Method. Practice pages of loops and swirls and slants and finishes. Flourishes and filigrees. I have been down this road before. So why am I stuck. Why are my hands shaking when I attempt to practice? Okay okay so my hands are not what they used to be, and I am not as steady as I once was, but that is not the issue. Few people these days write free hand. Some cannot even legibly sign their own name. The last time I signed my name at the grocery store using my finger, my signature looked like that of someone with a serious mental disorder.
I know what’s wrong. I recognize the problem at hand. I’m just being cautious before launching into the basis of my fear.
Lines.
Straight lines.
Perfectly straight unbending start stop lines.
Linear thinking.
Straight up and straight down unbending unforgiving hard immovable lines.
Outside, Mother Nature draws from her palette of colors, shades and hues of rambling, rotating, flourishing strokes. Hills and valleys, snaking streams, trickling dribbles of rain falling randomly onto the raised branches of trees. Trees with their branches raised and not a straight line to be seen. Blades of grass bending under a whiff of a breeze. Petals dancing, not marching in the air. Even the leaves flutter to a rhythm of a song, one leaning north while all the others lean south.
The only straight lines I see, are the ones made by man. The roof lines. The gate posts, the fence line. The squared window panes and the rectangular doorways. The solid brick pavers and the concrete slabs.
How did we get here?
To linear thinking.
It is a sad and scary place to be.
Rigid. Upright. Uptight.
Toeing the line. Tiptoeing every step.
A line that now separates you and me.
You from me. Me from you.
Are we all truly that straitlaced? So straight faced?
One dimensional pen and ink drawings?
I echo the sentiments of the little fish in the Dr. Seuss book, The Cat In the Hat.
“Oh I do not like it. Not one little bit.”
Rather, I prefer my writing to be free hand.
My thinking Non-Linear.
I want to be like the garden before me. Three dimensional and willing to change to adapt and to grow.
I know I am willing. Both historically and hysterically true.
I think of life as one gigantic family dinner. A gaggle of those who eat peas, and those who abhor anything green. So we make carrots too. We learn to eat cold food because some are tardy to the table and some arrive on the dot.
I believe this is why the microwave was invented.
We expect one generation to clash with another, because that is how human history works. Mothers and Fathers are always stupid until their children become Mothers and Fathers. Our life experiences are not the same, so why would we expect our perspectives to align in a straight line. Where is the fun in that?
Once upon a time, believe it or not, it was okay to disagree. Once upon a time, it was not a surprise when we found common ground. Once upon a time, we had conversations that did not automatically dissolve into confrontations. Once upon a time, we took the time to get to know one another, and to accept that our differences were not worth our separation from one another.
Once upon a time, as we celebrated our differences, we discovered our shared similarities. It should come as no surprise, that it was our similarities that drew us closer. Hunger, pain, worry, illness, as well as joy, happiness, laughter and delight touch us all, and when shared make traversing this life together rather remarkable.
I was a teacher. I taught daily that no question is ever stupid. The idea of not questioning is a mistake.
??????????????????????
Not a straight line to be found in a question mark.
There is one dangling over my head right here, right now.
A question mark is a symbol of wonder.
Curiosity.
The precursor to Creativity.
I’ve learned my lesson. I am not a painter.
I am however, when given a free hand to be myself,
not so bad.
I really am a nice person.
I will never paint your portrait.
Just one word of caution.
ALL of our lives end in a straight line.
______________________________
In the meantime,
wiggle, squiggle and doodle
every single minute.
Even if you aren’t very good at it.
With practice you'll get better.
Labels: Creative Lettering, drawing, linear thinking, straight lines
I am taking an online class in Creative Lettering. I spend hours on You Tube watching clever creative DIY types demonstrate techniques and ideas to hand letter in my OWN style. Illuminating letters. Negative Illumination. Chalk Lettering. Lettering in ink, acrylic paint, and digitally. Filigrees. Florals. Swoops and Flourishes.
Then it is time to practice. My mind skips a beat. An old tune emerges. Remember when? Eleven years ago to be exact, when I needed illustrations to complete the Garden Pages. My Garden Pages. With watercolor images of the treasures of the garden painted to perfection by my own hand.
A disaster.
Of epic proportions.
I can describe my garden to you. I can feel my garden living here in my heart. I know each and every one of my garden pals, including the pests, by name. I speak their language. We coexist, side by side. I nurture them, they feed my soul.
I could be kind to myself and describe my watercolor renderings as impressionistic or abstract. However, as I must be honest with you if I am to be honest with myself, my painting is worse than a three year old’s crayon drawing. Ask any three year old to describe their painting, and after a moment, you can see the gist of their early efforts. The yellow blob is the sun. The streak of blue is the sky.
Then it is time to practice. My mind skips a beat. An old tune emerges. Remember when? Eleven years ago to be exact, when I needed illustrations to complete the Garden Pages. My Garden Pages. With watercolor images of the treasures of the garden painted to perfection by my own hand.
A disaster.
Of epic proportions.
I can describe my garden to you. I can feel my garden living here in my heart. I know each and every one of my garden pals, including the pests, by name. I speak their language. We coexist, side by side. I nurture them, they feed my soul.
I could be kind to myself and describe my watercolor renderings as impressionistic or abstract. However, as I must be honest with you if I am to be honest with myself, my painting is worse than a three year old’s crayon drawing. Ask any three year old to describe their painting, and after a moment, you can see the gist of their early efforts. The yellow blob is the sun. The streak of blue is the sky.
If I explained my painting to you...you would listen thoughtfully...then say to yourself...
Blobs. Streaks. Shapeless forms. What is this???
Blobs. Streaks. Shapeless forms. What is this???
Thus, I resorted to photography and playfulness.
So why? Why now am I walking down the same path with lettering?
It will not end well.
So there you have my history.
Now you need to understand my hysteria.
I have beautiful handwriting. I learned by rote. The Palmer Method. Practice pages of loops and swirls and slants and finishes. Flourishes and filigrees. I have been down this road before. So why am I stuck. Why are my hands shaking when I attempt to practice? Okay okay so my hands are not what they used to be, and I am not as steady as I once was, but that is not the issue. Few people these days write free hand. Some cannot even legibly sign their own name. The last time I signed my name at the grocery store using my finger, my signature looked like that of someone with a serious mental disorder.
I know what’s wrong. I recognize the problem at hand. I’m just being cautious before launching into the basis of my fear.
Lines.
Straight lines.
Perfectly straight unbending start stop lines.
Linear thinking.
Straight up and straight down unbending unforgiving hard immovable lines.
Outside, Mother Nature draws from her palette of colors, shades and hues of rambling, rotating, flourishing strokes. Hills and valleys, snaking streams, trickling dribbles of rain falling randomly onto the raised branches of trees. Trees with their branches raised and not a straight line to be seen. Blades of grass bending under a whiff of a breeze. Petals dancing, not marching in the air. Even the leaves flutter to a rhythm of a song, one leaning north while all the others lean south.
The only straight lines I see, are the ones made by man. The roof lines. The gate posts, the fence line. The squared window panes and the rectangular doorways. The solid brick pavers and the concrete slabs.
How did we get here?
To linear thinking.
It is a sad and scary place to be.
Rigid. Upright. Uptight.
Toeing the line. Tiptoeing every step.
A line that now separates you and me.
You from me. Me from you.
Are we all truly that straitlaced? So straight faced?
One dimensional pen and ink drawings?
I echo the sentiments of the little fish in the Dr. Seuss book, The Cat In the Hat.
“Oh I do not like it. Not one little bit.”
Rather, I prefer my writing to be free hand.
My thinking Non-Linear.
I want to be like the garden before me. Three dimensional and willing to change to adapt and to grow.
I know I am willing. Both historically and hysterically true.
I think of life as one gigantic family dinner. A gaggle of those who eat peas, and those who abhor anything green. So we make carrots too. We learn to eat cold food because some are tardy to the table and some arrive on the dot.
I believe this is why the microwave was invented.
We expect one generation to clash with another, because that is how human history works. Mothers and Fathers are always stupid until their children become Mothers and Fathers. Our life experiences are not the same, so why would we expect our perspectives to align in a straight line. Where is the fun in that?
Once upon a time, believe it or not, it was okay to disagree. Once upon a time, it was not a surprise when we found common ground. Once upon a time, we had conversations that did not automatically dissolve into confrontations. Once upon a time, we took the time to get to know one another, and to accept that our differences were not worth our separation from one another.
Once upon a time, as we celebrated our differences, we discovered our shared similarities. It should come as no surprise, that it was our similarities that drew us closer. Hunger, pain, worry, illness, as well as joy, happiness, laughter and delight touch us all, and when shared make traversing this life together rather remarkable.
I was a teacher. I taught daily that no question is ever stupid. The idea of not questioning is a mistake.
??????????????????????
Not a straight line to be found in a question mark.
There is one dangling over my head right here, right now.
A question mark is a symbol of wonder.
Curiosity.
The precursor to Creativity.
I’ve learned my lesson. I am not a painter.
I am however, when given a free hand to be myself,
not so bad.
I really am a nice person.
I will never paint your portrait.
Just one word of caution.
ALL of our lives end in a straight line.
______________________________
In the meantime,
Just one word of caution.
ALL of our lives end in a straight line.
______________________________
In the meantime,
wiggle, squiggle and doodle
every single minute.
Even if you aren’t very good at it.
With practice you'll get better.
Labels: Creative Lettering, drawing, linear thinking, straight lines
|
© Garden Variety Wisdom® All Rights Reserved |
