Words of Thanks!

Courtesy of
http://venturegalleries.com/blog/
words-that-make-us-laugh-or-cry/

We have just celebrated the day set aside for gratitude. And, of course, turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, and pumpkin pie. But mostly, gratitude. Like others, I am grateful for so many things in my life. As the Wordsy Woman, I'm thankful for the twenty-six letters than can be arranged in a near-infinite number of combinations to make words which can be arranged to create a near-infinite number of sentences which can be arranged to make paragraphs, poems, stories, novels, and an array of messages that can do just about anything. They can make people feel, think, change someone's mind, or convince them to do something. Inspire, comfort, protect, and bring justice.

Words are so little but can do so much. In my opinion, they are the most powerful thing in the world. They connect me to people and provide the source for my passion and purpose in life.

So this year, in addition to all of the usual "I'm thankful for"s like a roof over my head, great kids, good husband, enjoyable family, food to eat, my health, the green grass, and blue sky, I'm going to declare my special gratitude this year for...

Words.

Hope you had a Happy Thanksgiving!

-The Wordsy Woman

ADVENTURES IN CREATIVE WRITING - WEEK ONE

I have to say I think the first week of the CASI (Center for Active Seniors, Inc.) and MWC (Midwest Writing Center) creative writing classes went pretty great. There was just one tense moment when I forgot I'd had my laptop on mute so the audio from my video wasn't coming out of my speakers, but that was about it. Ten people ended up attending the session, a good crowd.

I have to admit, also, that I was nervous. My inner critic, which we talked about, was all over me. She told me I didn't know what I was talking about, that I was not qualified to teach anyone anything, and when she ran out of everything else, she jumped to her go-to critique, "You're a hack." But I followed my own advice and just told her, "Maybe so, but I'm doing it anyway." And I did. And everyone seemed to enjoy it and learn something. And my great lesson for today is: You Tube is a workshop instructor's lifesaver. Showing videos gave me a break from talking, took off some of the pressure of making sure I said everything to say about the topic, and hopefully reinforced my message by showing people saying the same things in different ways.

Today, I tried to help people say what they want to say by getting them in the habit of writing. We talked about what creative writing is and what it isn't. I assured them they all have what takes to write and even if they never do anything with it, it's still a worthwhile endeavor. We talked about carving out the time and space for writing and how to deal with the inner critic. Everyone had great comments and questions. Hopefully they left inspired to write something...anything...and to return next week. We'll be talking about idea generation, prompts, free writing, and introducing the various creative writing types.

Until then... Happy Writing!!!

The Wordsy Woman

HELPING OTHERS SAY WHAT THEY WANT TO SAY

On Tuesday, November 13th, I will embark on a project to directly practice the "helping people say what they want to say" part of my mission. I've volunteered to lead a seven session workshop series about creative writing for members of Center for Active Seniors, Inc. (CASI). It is a partnership between CASI and the Midwest Writing Center (MWC). A CASI member who I know through MWC came up with the idea after interacting with fellow-CASI members dealing with the loss of a spouse or other issues. He thought, as it had him, it might help them to write about it and perhaps seeing their words in a publication might help them as well.

I was excited to help so we met with CASI and decided to put together the program: two seven-week sessions, one this fall and one next spring, leading to anthology publication early next summer. I would teach the first three sessions about creative writing basics; invite guest speakers for fiction, poetry, and nonfiction; and then end with a summary session also focusing on revision and editing in preparation for putting together the anthology.

I am excited about the project and a little nervous, as I usually am when taking on new projects. Will I measure up? Will they believe I know what I'm talking about? Will they be bored? Will they think I'm a hack? And the list goes on and on. This is my "self confidence problem" peeking its ugly head into my sense of excitement. To combat it, I've re-studied my writing books and put together a slide presentation complete with you-tube videos to reinforce what I'm saying. At the least, I hope I can share my passion for writing by telling them what I've learned about the process over the years. At the most, I hope that by inspiring them to get into creative writing and giving them some ideas about how to do it, I will help them say what they want to say.

I also hope over the next seven weeks, I'll get some interesting material I can share here on this blog.

-The Wordsy Woman

WHAT WORDS GET YOUR VOTE?

If you are eighteen or older and a United States citizen, you will or should be headed to the polls this coming Tuesday to cast your vote for our next President, Vice-President, and a whole roster of other elected officials – unless, of course, you are like me and took advantage of early or absentee voting.

In large part, you have or will place your vote based on words. Words spoken or written by the candidates themselves, political action committees, or friends and in or on newspapers, billboards, lawn signs, television commercials, candidate appearances, on expensive glossy snail mailed cards, or one or more of the thirteen thousand twenty-six telephone calls you’ve received over the past several weeks.

It doesn’t matter who you like better – or, more accurately, who you dislike less – or with which party your beliefs generally align, you can probably agree that political candidates, as a whole, tend to do unspeakable things with words. They twist them. They make them up. The fling them like flaming sacks of you-know-what. Sometimes they’re true. Sometimes they’re not. Sometimes they’re recorded secretly. And sometimes they are spliced together in a masterpiece of video manipulation.

So how do you know what to believe? I don’t know the answer. But here are two things I do with all those political words:

1.            Consider the source of the words. I’m more inclined to believe those “I’m so-and-so and I approve this message” words than those where that affirmation is missing. For some candidates, it seems that they don’t even produce their own commercials – they just rely on or are victims of these other groups’ apparently astronomical marketing budgets.

2.            Listen to every single word. What are they really saying? But more important, what are they not saying? Those marketing message copywriters are very crafty – they choose each word carefully so if it seems they’ve left something out, chances are it was on purpose and not just an oversight. Ask yourself, "Why?"

Whether you are a Donkey or an Elephant and whether you are empowered by or view that label as an insult or associate yourself with a whole other “animal” altogether, happy voting.

-From the Wordsy Woman