“And take extra care with strangers –
even flowers have their dangers.
And though scary is exciting,
nice is different than good.”
Into The Woods…
“Here’s to the Crazy Ones…” Jack Kerouac
New writing passion :)
Hello there,
I have been recently excited that a complete story idea came to me the other day. This is exciting because my life being a single parent and teaching at university – is time and energy consuming and sometimes the creative impulses seem to be elusive. However, the other day a story came to me and even an idea for a novella. This causes me to feel re-energised and to feel my purpose and almost like a connection to who I am again, like an internal sighing. I am not sure if that makes sense 😉
I am writing a non fiction book about writing therapy, that I will talk about on here when it is finished, but I feel exhilarated that my creativity is flowing now and as I change my teaching schedule I believe this will improve my creative life.
My friend who is a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Queensland told me once that he kind of resented teaching sometimes because it took him away from his love, which was to write. I can understand this, as teaching is fairly creative and our creative impulses become directed towards teaching and analysing and marking essays. 🙂
I am happy to say that I am now entering my creative phase again, (not just because I will be studying poetry soon but that will be fabulous) and I am also looking forward to writing not for an assessment but to explore an idea I have recently been captivated by. I plan to explore this idea from many of the characters’ points of view.
Anyway, thanks for reading. Maybe sometime I will post up a video.
Kind regards to you and have a beautiful day.
Suzanne
My story “A Void Dance”, published in The Quarry Journal, Macquarie University…
Words are immensely powerful…
Words hold immense power. One of my students and a friend in my life inspired me to resume writing my book about writing therapy last week. They didn’t know they were doing it, but together their words affected me internally. One of them was just playing around as well. Be careful with words, they carry a lot of power. Words can expand someone, allow them to feel appreciated, respected for their talents or personal attributes, to feel “seen”, words can cause growth, enlighten, enliven, and conversely words can penetrate, destroy and denigrate others. I have seen the power of abusive words personally and in others’ lives, how it can take people years to recover from this, if they choose to, or faster if they confront it with truth. Remember this when you speak and write to those around you. 🙂 Words are beautiful messengers and small bridges of connection between us and others, it can be intimate and it can be a simple communication between work colleagues. Words connect us to each other. I have always loved words since I was five years old placing them in this folder as we learned them. I was captivated and in love with words from the first moment. But now I see their significance even more. Value your words and give them to others with care, they are small gifts that carry so much more meaning than a material object. You could inspire people around you and you could help them right when they needed to hear a kind word, we never know what they are facing or what is going on inside others. Happy International Happiness Day!
Can you see your own beauty? Embrace your uniqueness…
My daughter showed me this clip when she was researching an assignment. I know it is produced by Dove, however it brought me to tears. It highlights to me our criticism of ourselves and our generosity to others in recognising their beauty. Embrace yours, you were created unique, forget, ignore, reject the obsession with perfection we see in the media, including social media, using technology to erase our humanity. Our humanity is seen in our imperfections, in the blemishes and in the variations of colour of hair and eyes and skin.
Embrace your beauty. You are beautiful, no matter your dress size, the lines on your face-speak of life and experience, your skin is you. You are more than your body parts, there is no one like you to those around you. Others see you shining through, but do you?
I just want to say to anyone watching this, whether female or male, you are beautiful and unique.
He could be speaking about our time…Here, here, Oscar Wilde, well said…
“Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
Oscar Wilde on beautiful things…
“Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
Road less travelled…
“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.”
Robert Frost.
2015 – Looking forward
Hey,
Sometimes before going forward we must look back to where we’ve been – to be grateful for what has been and to feel glad we have come through some difficult times. Yesterday, I wrote a list of things that had happened in 2014, the good, the bad, the significant, people I met, new experiences, negative experiences, health issues I had last year, and some amazing, outstanding and transcendent experiences I also had. I highly recommend this.
1. Write down everything you went through in 2014 in dot points. This will allow you to see everything that was before and to possibly let go of anything you need to as well as give you peace and gratitude for the wonderful things that happened and the way you were looked after and blessed in 2014. I think it is very useful to do this then you have an overview and can feel satisfaction that you came through a lot or celebration that you experienced amazing things as well. Most likely, it will be both, well it was for me.
2. Then you can write your resolutions, after letting go of 2014 and feeling gratitude and really “seeing” everything you went through and maybe for some of you it was an amazing year, 2014! For me – 2014 was filled with knowledge of humankind that was at times disturbing and other times inspiring, and I mean in the people I met and personal relationships as well as on the world stage.
The resolutions can then be focused – as you have overseen where you have been and the things that are developing in your life and areas you want to explore more. I love New Years, because it allows me a clean page on which to write and have things written and reveals to me a path ahead that is unchartered, maybe crooked and windy, possibly dangerous and uncertain, and definitely less travelled than other roads, but it is my path and I love to be standing here at the beginning of a new section of it, with the wind causing ‘bracing ventillation’ and to anticipate the adventures that lie around those twists and turns, and the possibility of the unknown and unexpected.
Suzanne Strong 