Write Anyway

Compassion is defined as:

“the humane quality of understanding the suffering of others and wanting to do something about it” - WordNet Search

Described as more powerful than even empathy, compassion makes you not only commiserate with someone else but want to do whatever you can to make the situation better.

Though it seems somewhat like bragging to say so, I am a compassionate person. Whenever I see someone having a tough time, I want to make it better. I’m compassionate to a point that I have to stop myself and think about things because some people get uncomfortable with compassion.

At the end of the day, though, I am most satisfied when I have done something to make at least one other person’s life easier.

Are you a compassionate person? Do you think about your compassionate acts or just do them? Has anyone ever called you compassionate? Do you know compassionate people? Do you know any stories of compassion that have moved you? Do you make an effort to be compassionate? Does effort take away some of the goodness of compassion or is it the act that counts?

Remember, to help clear your mind before you start writing, take a few deep breaths. Focus on the sound of the air entering and leaving your lungs. Let the noises and worries of the day fade for a few moments while you focus only on breathing.

After you are calm, think about your experiences and start writing.

Wishing you heaps of creativity, a generous muse and heaps of time to write. Feel free to check in here with your progress for the day/week/month/etc.

I always wanted to be graceful (and petite) enough to be a beautiful ballet dancer. Graceful, precise, meaningful movements… Very pretty.

I will be honest, though. The kind of dancing that really inspires me, gets my heart going and makes me want to get up and dance…. Well, that is traditional tribal dancing. Wild movements around the fire, synchronized movements around a blazing fire ask a show of reverence to the gods.

When I watch those movements, I feel as if I have been transported back in time if only for a moment. I feel like I am witnessing a piece of history. Dance has been with us for so long, and yet so many people just dismiss it…

Think about dancing. Does it move you? Does it inspire you? Do you hate dancing? Do you love it? Do you have any stories of embarrassment that have to do with dancing? Have you ever been caught dancing? Have you ever seen a traditional tribal dance? What kind of music makes you want to get up and dance?

Remember, to help clear your mind before you start writing, take a few deep breaths. Focus on the sound of the air entering and leaving your lungs. Let the noises and worries of the day fade for a few moments while you focus only on breathing.

After you are calm, think about your experiences and start writing.

Wishing you heaps of creativity, a generous muse and heaps of time to write. Feel free to check in here with your progress for the day/week/month/etc.

*Picture from Aringsburg Kennel

For a long time now, my husband and I have wanted to get a dog. I was a bit more general on what it could be, but given I’m allergic to some cats and I just plain don’t do fish, a dog seemed the natural choice.

Did I mention that my husband has had dogs most of his life and has a particular love for German Shepherds?

The problem is where we live. There is no back yard. We’re in a small flat. We would love the dog utterly and completely, but could all that love really make up for an open back yard?

And so we’re stuck, longing for the day we can get our own place with space for a dog we can love.

Do you have a pet? If yes, what kind? If no, do you want a pet? Why or why not? Did you grow up with pets or have you never had one? Do you have an inspirational, funny, or outright strange pet stories? Do you/did you have a pet that you will forever remember fondly?

Remember, to help clear your mind before you start writing, take a few deep breaths. Focus on the sound of the air entering and leaving your lungs. Let the noises and worries of the day fade for a few moments while you focus only on breathing.

After you are calm, think about your experiences and start writing.

Wishing you heaps of creativity, a generous muse and heaps of time to write. Feel free to check in here with your progress for the day/week/month/etc.

It may seem like a lot, pairing the subjects of life and death together like I have. They’re such huge subjects. I could have dedicated one week to life and one week to death.

However, while that does work, I think the contemplation of both subjects takes on new levels and meanings when you pair them together. They’re polar opposites to some people and yet, to others, they’re nothing of the sort.

And so I’ve paired them together for this week’s contemplation in the hope that you’ll garner more inspiration and deep thinking that way. It’s all well and fine to contemplate the light, but when you’re also thinking about the darkness, new qualities arise.

What does life mean to you? Is there a difference between life and living? Have you lived a full life? Could you define your life in a single word? A song? A poem?

What does death mean to you? Do you believe in life after death? Reincarnation? Something different? Is death the end or something different? How would you prefer to die?

Remember, to help clear your mind before you start writing, take a few deep breaths. Focus on the sound of the air entering and leaving your lungs. Let the noises and worries of the day fade for a few moments while you focus only on breathing.

After you are calm, think about your experiences and start writing.

Wishing you heaps of creativity, a generous muse and heaps of time to write. Feel free to check in here with your progress for the day/week/month/etc.

‘Home’ is a funny thing.

Home can be a place. A person. A place you’ve always been or a place you’ve never been. “How can home be a place you’ve never been?” you might ask. Well, if ‘home is where the heart is’ and your love is overseas, then your home can be a place you’ve never been to.

When I stepped off the plane in Melbourne, got through customs and shared my first physical hugs with my (now) husband, I felt a stress lift off my shoulders. I had finally arrived home. I’ve never stopped thinking of Australia as my home and I hope I never will.

Where I come from is… well, where I come from. Period. It’s not home. This is home. My husband and me in our small, run down flat.

What is your home? Who is your home? Is your home the place you grew up? A place you’ve never been? The place you are now?

What makes a home? Is it a matter of location to you or do you go with the saying ‘home is where your heart is’? Are homes made or are homes instant?

Remember, to help clear your mind before you start writing, take a few deep breaths. Focus on the sound of the air entering and leaving your lungs. Let the noises and worries of the day fade for a few moments while you focus only on breathing.

After you are calm, think about your experiences and start writing.

Wishing you heaps of creativity, a generous muse and heaps of time to write.

As you well and truly know by now, I love music. I find it inspirational, comforting, motivating and much more.

Sometimes I need silence to write, but I also use music as a way to get me into certain moods to write certain scenes. I also use music as a way to keep me moving when I am cleaning house or when I am working out.

There are a few songs that I really identify with as music that ’speaks’ to me, but if there is one song I feel defines my life, it’s ‘And So It Goes’ by Billy Joel. I absolutely love that song.

What, if anything, is the role of music in your life? Do you listen to a lot or a little? None at all? Do you use music to comfort yourself? Do you use it to motivate you (music to work out with, etc)? Have you ever written a song? Do you play any sort of musical instrument? Do you sing? If you had to pick just one song to be the theme of your life, which song would it be?

Remember, to help clear your mind before you start writing, take a few deep breaths. Focus on the sound of the air entering and leaving your lungs. Let the noises and worries of the day fade for a few moments while you focus only on breathing.

After you are calm, think about your experiences and start writing.

Wishing you heaps of creativity, a generous muse and heaps of time to write.

Ah, patience.

I know that I can get impatient sometimes, but I like to think that, for the most part, I am a patient person. I certainly don’t have the patience of a saint, so to say, but I am able to wait for things without going absolutely bonkers.

My husband seems to think otherwise. He’s under the impression that I want everything yesterday. I insist that I’m not impatient, rather we are having a little bit of trouble communicating…

Either way, it does appear that patience or the lack thereof is something that can be in the eye of the beholder sometimes. In life, there are many things we have to wait for. Big milestones like being able to drive and even little things like waiting for the dinner bell as a child. Patience is something that is often forced upon us. Or rather, the waiting is forced. Whether it is patient waiting is up to the person.

Focus inwardly today and think about patience. Are you patient? No? Did you inherit you patience/impatience from anyone in particular? Has your impatience ever gotten you in trouble? Has anyone ever commented on your patience? Do you think patience is an important thing? Just a personality trait?

Remember, to help clear your mind before you start writing, take a few deep breaths. Focus on the sound of the air entering and leaving your lungs. Let the noises and worries of the day fade for a few moments while you focus only on breathing.

After you are calm, think about your experiences and start writing.

Wishing you heaps of creativity, a generous muse and heaps of time to write.

To symbolize means to “represent or identify by using a symbol“. For example, this - $ - symbolizes money. This - + - symbolizes addition. Or, alternatively, it can symbolize positive.

Our lives are filled with symbols. The green light of traffic lights means go. It doesn’t say go, but the lit up green light means that it is your turn to go. A number in a red circle means the speed limit. Black and yellow tape around something or an area usually means caution.

If you start thinking about all the symbols you see, even in just one day, you begin to realize just how much we are directed by objects and ideas, signs and symbols. It’s quite amazing when you think about the scale of it. On the other hand, it can be a little disturbing, too.

Today, let the inspiration take you where it will. Write a list about the symbols and symbolism you see in the room around you. Think about the symbols you encounter everyday. Write a scene or short story where the symbols you know are all opposite. Write about what a world with no symbols would be like. Could there ever be such a thing?

Remember, to help clear your mind before you start writing, take a few deep breaths. Focus on the sound of the air entering and leaving your lungs. Let the noises and worries of the day fade for a few moments while you focus only on breathing.

After you are calm, think about your experiences and start writing.

Wishing you heaps of creativity, a generous muse and heaps of time to write.

When I was younger, I often had music playing while I was writing, working or whatever. When I wasn’t watching television, I was usually off writing or doing chores. Even when mowing the lawn - when wearing headphones didn’t do any good because I couldn’t hear anything anyway - I would think about songs. Heck, I’d often sing them as well because it wasn’t like anyone would hear me over the sound of the motor.

Maybe it’s because I live in a city now - next to a highway, no less - and silence is a rarer commodity than it is in the country… Maybe it’s a concentration thing… Maybe it’s just a part of getting older.

I have been thinking about silence. More often than not, I work without noise. When I do work with noise, it’s usually not the music. I prefer natural sounds like thunderstorms and rain.

But really, I like the silence - what I can get of it.

Today, think about silence. Where does you mind wander when it is silence? Have you ever found true silence? Do you value silence or do you feel things get too quiet for you? Think about uncomfortable silences, comfortable silences, forced silences…

Remember, to help clear your mind before you start writing, take a few deep breaths. Focus on the sound of the air entering and leaving your lungs. Let the noises and worries of the day fade for a few moments while you focus only on breathing.

After you are calm, think about your experiences and start writing.

Wishing you heaps of creativity, a generous muse and heaps of time to write.

Choices. Our lives are full of choices. It is impossible to do a day without making a choice. (But what if I just stayed in bed all day? I wondered. Well, you would be choosing to stay in bed, now wouldn’t you?)

I have been facing a lot of choices in my life recently and I can’t help but feel a bit flustered about them all. A lot of what I choose now will influence who I become as a person, what my husband and I are able to do in the future.

It’s probably not as melodramatic as I make it out to be, but it certainly feels like it at the moment. Alas, no one can make the choices but me (and my husband in some cases).

What are some of the choices you have made recently - big and small? How do you go about making choices? Do you discuss with people? Make a positive/negative list? Go with indecision? Decide on impulse? What is the most difficult thing you have had to make a choice about? Who is the first person you (would) talk to when making an important choice?

Remember, to help clear your mind before you start writing, take a few deep breaths. Focus on the sound of the air entering and leaving your lungs. Let the noises and worries of the day fade for a few moments while you focus only on breathing.

After you are calm, think about your experiences and start writing.

Wishing you heaps of creativity, a generous muse and heaps of time to write.

Today I’m thinking about resolutions.

I don’t really make resolutions. I’ve tried to in the past just because it seemed like everyone else was doing it, but I’d forget in a couple weeks what my goals were. Now that I’m older, I’ve realized that I’m almost always on the track to improving myself and my life, so I don’t need resolutions to get me to focus.

I do know a lot of people who do make resolutions, though, and more power to them. If that’s how you focus, then that’s how you focus. I wish the most strength and focus to everyone trying to keep to their resolutions this year.

So you know what I’m going to ask you about, don’t you? You probably saw it coming when you read the title, but even so…

Do you make New Year Resolutions? Why or why not? Do people you know make them? If you do make them, what resolutions have you made for this year? Do they change from year to year or tend to stay the same? If you don’t make them, do you have resolution-like substitutes or do you just skip it all entirely?

Remember, to help clear your mind before you start writing, take a few deep breaths. Focus on the sound of the air entering and leaving your lungs. Let the noises and worries of the day fade for a few moments while you focus only on breathing.

After you are calm, think about your experiences and start writing.

Wishing you heaps of creativity, a generous muse and heaps of time to write.

You had to see this one coming, didn’t you? With everything that’s going on, it’s hard to not contemplate Christmas.

While Christmas wasn’t always perfect when I was growing up, I am fortunate enough to have a lot of good memories to associate with the holiday. So-called traditions came and went, the few really nice ones stuck around, food was always a pleasure even when family was not…

And there was never a Christmas that went by without presents. For that, I am very fortunate.

Christmas has changed a lot now that it’s me and the husband. Things are quieter, calmer, and definitely more relaxed. It’s strange to have just a few people to shop for, but it’s definitely a lot nicer on my savings account, that’s for sure.

(If you don’t celebrate Christmas, feel free to substitute in any other holiday you celebrate.)

Today, think about your memories of Christmas. Your experiences. Is this a good time of year for you or bad? Why?

Do you or your family have any holiday traditions? What are they? Do you enjoy them? Have you started any traditions of your own?

Remember, to help clear your mind before you start writing, take a few deep breaths. Focus on the sound of the air entering and leaving your lungs. Let the noises and worries of the day fade for a few moments while you focus only on breathing.

After you are calm, think about your experiences and start writing.

Wishing you heaps of creativity, a generous muse and an absolutely wonderful holiday.

Ah, the strangely beautiful and mysterious moon.

A popular urban myth (or is it?) I heard growing up was that there are more accidents on nights when a full moon is showing. Nursing home nurses and attendants have (supposedly) reported that the people they take care of get more agitated and restless on nights of the full moon.

When there is a white shimmery mist around the moon, it usually means it’s going to rain. Another rare rain teller would be if a bowl-shaped moon (quarter moon showing at the ‘bottom’) appears one night and then ‘flips over’ the next night.

Some people are very suspicious about the moon and some people ignore it completely. While the sun is considered masculine, the feminine usually identifies squarely with the moon, including phases of menstruation.

Love it, hate it, or ignore it, the moon has had a strong hold on our lore through the ages. That’s why I think it’s a perfect subject to write about.

Today, have fun. Write about whatever comes to mind when you think about the moon. Maybe you have a fiction scene in mind, a true life story, or maybe there is a poem within you about the moon. Let your creativity guide you.

Remember, to help clear your mind before you start writing, take a few deep breaths. Focus on the sound of the air entering and leaving your lungs. Let the noises and worries of the day fade for a few moments while you focus only on breathing.

After you are calm, think about your experiences and start writing.

Wishing you heaps of creativity and a generous muse.

*Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I recently half-seriously told my husband that I think I’m going through a mid-life crisis about twenty years before I’m supposed to.

Lately I have been feeling unsettled and without much direction. I suppose I should be happy about this, as I can do anything I want with my life (within sane, financial reason) and be whoever I want to be. But it doesn’t make me happy; it just makes me feel lost.

For so long I was told who I was and who I would be. You’d think that would be annoying, but for the most part it was comforting to have a label. I would be a writer. I would publish books. The end. While I would still like to do that, real life has come knocking and I’m scrambling so much to pay the bills that what free time I do have is used for extra sleep or brain drain relaxation time. I’m not seeing things get much easier, either, unless I develop some sort of plan for where and how I want my life to go.

When did you figure out what you wanted to do with your life? Have you figured it out yet? Do you even want to? Do you have a ‘life’ plan or do you feel life plans aren’t for you?

Remember, to help clear your mind before you start writing, take a few deep breaths. Focus on the sound of the air entering and leaving your lungs. Let the noises and worries of the day fade for a few moments while you focus only on breathing.

After you are calm, think about your experiences and start writing.

Wishing you heaps of creativity and a generous muse.

Today I’m thinking about communication.

Last night my husband and I had a long conversation and, though we kept saying the same things, it was as if we still couldn’t understand each other. Something was going wrong with the understanding part of our communicating. It took some time and effort, but we were eventually able to realize what each other were really saying.

Communication is a funny thing like that. We have visual filters, emotional filters, filters that form from past experiences. All these lead to us interpreting what we think someone is saying more often than what the person is actually saying.

Today I would like you to write about communication. I’ll give you some prompts to get you started (if you need them) but feel free to go above and beyond. Communication can be simple, complicated, silent, loud… It’s so many things, so it should be an interesting exercise to see where your writing takes you on the subject.

What are all the ways you can think of that people communicate with each other? Do you ever try to communicate with people without speaking? What are different ways you let people know what you’re thinking/feeling without saying anything? What is your definition of communication?

Remember, to help clear your mind before you start writing, take a few deep breaths. Focus on the sound of the air entering and leaving your lungs. Let the noises and worries of the day fade for a few moments while you focus only on breathing.

After you are calm, think about your experiences and start writing.

Wishing you heaps of creativity and a generous muse.