open invitation no. 54: out loud

Read your writing aloud while you draft.

I constantly read my writing aloud as I draft. This allows me to:

  1. Hear the sound of the words.
  2. Slow down and consider the meaning.

This allows me to craft the writing and make the words bubble or burrow. Try it. Read your draft aloud. Hear the sound of the words. Consider the meaning.

*Remember, you don’t have to accept this invitation…but I do hope you will accept the invitation to write. Sharing our stories is magical.

PS—I started a Facebook Group for the #sosmagic community. Join here.

write

Open your blog and write a post. Just write.

share

Reply to this post, jot a note and paste your URL.

comment

Comment on other blogs. Soak up the magic that will find you.

grab an image for your blog

Use one of these images so we can find each other…and you can invite others to share their stories with us!

Offer an invitation to others.

I’m joining an open community of writers over at Sharing Our Stories: Magic in a Blog. If you write (or want to write) just for the magic of it, consider this your invitation to join us. #sosmagic

open invitation no. 53: habits

Make it happen.

Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.
—Warren Buffet

Habit is essential for writers. If we develop a habit that allows us to enter into writing, then we will write more often. Consider the habit you have for joining #sosmagic. Do you have a reminder alarm? Do you decide to write first thing on Thursday morning or last thing on Wednesday? As you slide into blog writing, pay attention to the routines that make it happen. Then consider a routine to ensure it happens again and again. (We’d love to hear your habit in the comments as you share your links this week!)

*Remember, you don’t have to accept this invitation…but I do hope you will accept the invitation to write. Sharing our stories is magical.

PS—I started a Facebook Group for the #sosmagic community. Join here.

write

Open your blog and write a post. Just write.

share

Reply to this post, jot a note and paste your URL.

comment

Comment on other blogs. Soak up the magic that will find you.

grab an image for your blog

Use one of these images so we can find each other…and you can invite others to share their stories with us!

Offer an invitation to others.

I’m joining an open community of writers over at Sharing Our Stories: Magic in a Blog. If you write (or want to write) just for the magic of it, consider this your invitation to join us. #sosmagic

open invitation no. 52: home

What do you love about home?

In January Julie Cox wrote a blog post with the simple title, “Home.” It took my breath away and was one of those bits that tucked into my heart, and my writer’s spirit played with the ideas and the words. I’ve been thinking about writing on the topic of home since I read Julie’s post.

The invitation is to use “Home” as a mentor. Mentors are important to writers because they offer inspiration and training. Perhaps Julie’s writing will serve as a mentor for topic choice. Perhaps it will serve as a mentor for writing in real and raw ways. Perhaps it will serve as a mentor for a craft move.

Julie opens “Home” with these words —

I have lived in Kentucky for my whole life, but I haven’t always loved Kentucky as much as I do now. When I was younger, I was embarrassed that this state was my home. My family loved to travel, and when people found out where we were from, they might check our feet for shoes or compliment us on the great chicken. I’ll never forget a Florida cousin who let her boyfriend talk to me on the phone so he could find out what a southern person sounded like. How much farther south than Florida can you get?

JULIE COX

*Remember, you don’t have to accept this invitation…but I do hope you will accept the invitation to write. Sharing our stories is magical.

PS—I started a Facebook Group for the #sosmagic community. Join here.

write

Open your blog and write a post. Just write.

share

Reply to this post, jot a note and paste your URL.

comment

Comment on other blogs. Soak up the magic that will find you.

grab an image for your blog

Use one of these images so we can find each other…and you can invite others to share their stories with us!

Offer an invitation to others.

I’m joining an open community of writers over at Sharing Our Stories: Magic in a Blog. If you write (or want to write) just for the magic of it, consider this your invitation to join us. #sosmagic

open invitation no. 51: spring

Be inspired by spring.

I think words are fun when they can mean different things. Check out all of the definitions for spring.

  1. Move or jump suddenly or rapidly upward or forward.
  2. Originate or arise from.
  3. The season after winter and before summer, in which vegetation begins to appear, in the northern hemisphere from March to May and in the southern hemisphere from September to November.
  4. A resilient device, typically a helical metal coil, that can be pressed or pulled but returns to its former shape when released, used chiefly to exert constant tension or absorb movement.

[Definition from a Google search.]

The invitation today is to be inspired by “spring.” If you need more ideas, the Merriam-Webster definition is even more in depth, including to pay, as in “I’ll spring for drinks,” and many others.

*Remember, you don’t have to accept this invitation…but I do hope you will accept the invitation to write. Sharing our stories is magical.

PS—I started a Facebook Group for the #sosmagic community. Join here.

write

Open your blog and write a post. Just write.

share

Reply to this post, jot a note and paste your URL.

comment

Comment on other blogs. Soak up the magic that will find you.

grab an image for your blog

Use one of these images so we can find each other…and you can invite others to share their stories with us!

Offer an invitation to others.

I’m joining an open community of writers over at Sharing Our Stories: Magic in a Blog. If you write (or want to write) just for the magic of it, consider this your invitation to join us. #sosmagic

open invitation no. 50: pause

Give a pause.

Pauses in writing, just as in life, are a beautiful thing. How might you add a pause to your writing? Here are some of my favorite ways.

  • Use ellipsis…or sometimes informally called dot-dot-dot. This word stems from the Greek word, élleipsis, meaning to leave out. First graders often use this convention to build suspense. When first graders learn how the ellipsis gives pause and makes the reader wonder what’s going to happen, they begin using it all…of…the…time…
  • Write a one sentence paragraph. It is no surprise that I love the one sentence paragraph. One reason to use it is to give the reader pause.
  • Leave white space. Did you know this is called interstice? (I didn’t either until Christy Rush-Levine started her blog: interstice.)
  • Add a photo. Using a visual to break up the text will allow a pause in your writing. elsie is the queen of this technique.

*Remember, you don’t have to accept this invitation…but I do hope you will accept the invitation to write. Sharing our stories is magical.

PS—I started a Facebook Group for the #sosmagic community. Join here.

write

Open your blog and write a post. Just write.

share

Reply to this post, jot a note and paste your URL.

comment

Comment on other blogs. Soak up the magic that will find you.

grab an image for your blog

Use one of these images so we can find each other…and you can invite others to share their stories with us!

Offer an invitation to others.

I’m joining an open community of writers over at Sharing Our Stories: Magic in a Blog. If you write (or want to write) just for the magic of it, consider this your invitation to join us. #sosmagic

open invitation no. 49: sunset challenge

Capture a sunset.

Consider capturing a sunset. It can be a sunset from long ago or one that’s happened this week. Here’s the challenge:

  • Don’t use color words — red, pink, purple, but still allow us to visualize the color of the sunset.
  • Don’t use seasonal words, but give us a sense of the time of year.
  • Do reflect your “inside story” by describing the “outside story” of the sunset.

*Remember, you don’t have to accept this invitation…but I do hope you will accept the invitation to write. Sharing our stories is magical.

PS—I started a Facebook Group for the #sosmagic community. Join here.

write

Open your blog and write a post. Just write.

share

Reply to this post, jot a note and paste your URL.

comment

Comment on other blogs. Soak up the magic that will find you.

grab an image for your blog

Use one of these images so we can find each other…and you can invite others to share their stories with us!

Offer an invitation to others.

I’m joining an open community of writers over at Sharing Our Stories: Magic in a Blog. If you write (or want to write) just for the magic of it, consider this your invitation to join us. #sosmagic

open invitation no. 48: slice

Capture a Slice of Life.

I remember writing slices before it was a thing. Back when there were just two teachers who loved teaching and loved writing and wanted to write alongside one another about teaching writers, even though they were 865 miles apart.

A lot has changed since then. The magic of a slice, though, remains. Today, regardless of whether you are joining the March 2021 Slice of Life Challenge, I would like to invite you to write a slice of life.

*Remember, you don’t have to accept this invitation…but I do hope you will accept the invitation to write. Sharing our stories is magical.

PS—I started a Facebook Group for the #sosmagic community. Join here.

write

Open your blog and write a post. Just write.

share

Reply to this post, jot a note and paste your URL.

comment

Comment on other blogs. Soak up the magic that will find you.

grab an image for your blog

Use one of these images so we can find each other…and you can invite others to share their stories with us!

Offer an invitation to others.

I’m joining an open community of writers over at Sharing Our Stories: Magic in a Blog. If you write (or want to write) just for the magic of it, consider this your invitation to join us. #sosmagic

open invitation no. 47: for sure

What do you know for sure?

What do you know for sure?
What do you know is true?
What do you know by heart?

Try to capture what you know for sure in a list or a poem or a scene.

*Remember, you don’t have to accept this invitation…but I do hope you will accept the invitation to write. Sharing our stories is magical.

PS—I started a Facebook Group for the #sosmagic community. Join here.

write

Open your blog and write a post. Just write.

share

Reply to this post, jot a note and paste your URL.

comment

Comment on other blogs. Soak up the magic that will find you.

grab an image for your blog

Use one of these images so we can find each other…and you can invite others to share their stories with us!

Offer an invitation to others.

I’m joining an open community of writers over at Sharing Our Stories: Magic in a Blog. If you write (or want to write) just for the magic of it, consider this your invitation to join us. #sosmagic

open invitation no. 46: oops

There are times writing goes awry.

An email from an #SOSmagic story collector arrived in my inbox with a link to her post for this week. I mentally slapped my forehead with my palm because I realized invitation number 46 didn’t go live last Thursday. It takes a matter of minutes to fix it, but here I am, three days later, just now making a post live.

I used to let this kind of mistake drag me down.
Now I’ve learned to say, “Oops.”

There’s a Bob Ross quote that hangs on the door from our house to our garage. It is a reminder to the whole family and goes like this:

“I don’t make mistakes. I make happy, little accidents.”

Bob Ross

Oops has a lot more power than negative expletives. Oops means I’m moving on without being pulled down. I hope you’ll share a story, even though the invitation was a little late this week.

*Remember, you don’t have to accept this invitation…but I do hope you will accept the invitation to write. Sharing our stories is magical.

PS—I started a Facebook Group for the #sosmagic community. Join here.

write

Open your blog and write a post. Just write.

share

Reply to this post, jot a note and paste your URL.

comment

Comment on other blogs. Soak up the magic that will find you.

grab an image for your blog

Use one of these images so we can find each other…and you can invite others to share their stories with us!

Offer an invitation to others.

I’m joining an open community of writers over at Sharing Our Stories: Magic in a Blog. If you write (or want to write) just for the magic of it, consider this your invitation to join us. #sosmagic