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I am so super excited about writing today. Why? Because I read other people’s writings yesterday and today (for the first time) and I got lots of ideas! It’s crazy how much being a part of a community of writers can have a positive effect, and inspiring effect on one’s own writing. Last time I took a writing class and had to do free writing I began by writing lots of poems, mostly using poem starters. Then I moved into stories. This time I have been sporadic (which is very unlike me). Tracy Cousino had some poem starters and list starters that I asked her to use. Here I go:

Things I want to do within 5 years

(Let me first wrap my head around this for a minute: In five years it will be Autumn 2015. My daughter will be 12 years old, starting 7th grade and my son will be 8 starting 2nd grade, Wow! My husband will be retired and we will either be living in our forever house where we will settle down, or he will be two years into doing contracting/consulting work in his current field, which means we would be in DC.)

In 5 years: 1) I want to have a current teaching license (my old one expired last Dec and I didn’t renew it). 2) Be finished with my master’s degree (that should be May 2011). 3) I would like to go back to teaching. I would love it to be part time. Half days, so that I could still be with the kids in the afternoons/evenings and keep up with the housework, but I am sure that is just a fantastical dream that I cannot find. That means I will probably be working full time. I am so scared I won’t have time for my own kids. I wonder if that’s the case. 4) This is terrible! I cannot think of any more life goals!

I used to have life goals, but I am almost done achieving them. My old goals were 1)have kids – done! 2) live abroad at least one year – done x’s 5 and 3) get my master’s degree – done in May!

What does it say about me if I don’t have life goals?

I guess it could be 1) keep raising my kids 2) keep being married 3) eventually go back to teaching. ?

Or it could be 1) live in an eco-friendly house (I would have to define that because that could be quite illusive without parameters) 2) eventually go back to teaching (I keep saying eventually because I don’t know when I want that to be. All I remember is how utterly consuming teaching was before I had kids and how utterly consuming my kids are now and I am just worried that I will not fill completely fulfilled in either if I go back while my kids are still young. Obtaining my master’s degree has been the best because I have been able to be at home with my kids AND keep close to my professional field. The idea was presented to me a few weeks ago that I could just keep going to school, earn a PhD to continue having the best of both worlds, but what does an early elementary school teacher need with a PhD? I know I don’t want to be a principal! I don’t like people complaining to me that much. Wonder if I could teach on-line somewhere, during the day, with just a Master’s degree. Wonder if there is a community college where I can be an on-line professor for a few years until my kids are at the phase where they are so busy with after school activities that they don’t get home until 5 or 6 pm anyway.

I did not intend to explore this topic today. I intended on writing a simple list.

I guess I cannot complete this list. Not yet. My husband is having an even worse kind of crisis. He retires in 3 years and he has no idea what he wants to do. I teased him the other day and asked if he wants me to buy him the book, What Color is Your Parachute. I know that he will eventually decide on a next job (I pray it will be something that I am happy with. . . Running a bar is not something I think I will be happy with.). So I guess I need to also know that eventually I will decide on my next goals.

Write a book could be a goal, but I don’t want to be one of those unemployed writers like you see in movies. I want it to just flow out of me naturally and for me to happen upon a contract with a book company. I know that life goals do not just “happen” like that. The work for this master’s degree did not just flow out of me and a school did not just happen to grant me a degree.

So, for today, by 2015 I plan:

1) Have a teaching license.

2) Have some sort of part time job related to the teaching field, possibly full time.

3) Be working towards living in a eco-friendly house (whatever that is) and a big garden. (I learned this year that I like gardening. I have a few minutes, so I will tell you about my garden this year. I planted: onions, red chili peppers, corn, tomatoes, basil, rosemary, cilantro, dill, parsley, celery seed, strawberries, cucumbers, zuccinni, squash, and mint. Then, there’s the unexpected plants that just popped up: raspberry sprigs, sunflowers, one bell pepper plant, potatoes, and more tomatoes. I am having a BLAST with it. I am canning all sorts of food for the winter like salsa, pizza sauce, stewed tomatoes, jams and jellies. Next week I think I am going to buy a bushel of apples and make applesauce. The kids love it and you cannot find unsweetened applesauce here.

Sounds like a good plan!

Sunday, August 29, 2010

7:13a – 7:43a

Welcome to my free writing time.

I am taking a writing methods class and as a requirements I must “gift” myself a half an hour almost each day to write freely. I think that ultimately this time is supposed to be used for writing pieces, but today I am just so excited to do it that I am going to write in more of a journal form – just stream of consciousness writing!

I took a writing class before. It was an advanced class and I had not taken the pre-requisite. It was the only class in my degree that was not an “A”, so I am a tiny bit nervous that this class has that same possibility, but I am hopeful I will do well. I must admit that one of the things that I REALLY enjoyed about the previous writing class was the half hour of writing time each day. I wrote stories and poem; journal entries and ideas for more stories and poems. I enjoyed it a lot. All of my stories focused on my family. I wrote about my grandmothers – one story about each, plus one about my husband’s grandmother and one about my daughter. I might have written more about my daughter, but one that I was very proud of.

I also made a list of ideas. I must admit that I am looking forward to the idea of resurrecting some of those ideas. There are two more stories about my daughter that I would like to write – fictional stories that have her and her friends as characters. Once upon a time my goal was to write story a year about my daughter and her best friend that year (it changes every year because we move all the time), but I only wrote that ONE in writing class. Also, I still have lots of ideas about stories of family members. The family member stories are all true. Of course, since I was not there, I interview the family member, look up dates, research people’s names and information and then try to write a children’s style story about the true-to-life event. My goal is that one day I will somehow get them illustrated (maybe a scrapbook style illustration on snapfish using old photographs) and have copies made for my children.

Now that I think of it, I didn’t write a story about my husband’s grandmother’s childhood. Instead it was about when his aunt was a child. I had planned to write about when his grandmother moved to the first house they had with electricity. She remembers it. She was about 9 years old. Before that they lived in a house with only gas. She wrote me a letter with her memories, but I didn’t have time to turn it into a story before my class ended. The writing of stories actually takes longer than the idea generating!

I guess I always wrote stories about grandmothers because I had a daughter during that last class and I wanted my daughter to know what a great line of strong women she comes from, but now that I have a son, I might want to consider writing a story about my grandfathers. A story about my father will be easy since my dad already started writing a story about working in the candy cane factory. I am not sure he has finished that story yet, but I am sure that he will and he will wrap it up as a surprise to me for Christmas!

Grandfather stories? Papa B – it could be a war story. . . But that might not be a good story for children… . It could be a story about when he was a kid. He was an adventurous boy who probably got into mischief. . . .I am sure that those were funny instances, I just don’t know them. He lived on an island one time when he was a kid. Wonder what that was like. I have even been to that Island – Cat Island, although it was much different back then than it is now.

Papa D – I don’t know if I know any of those stories either. I know his war story because we asked him about that a lot, but a childhood story? He had lots of siblings. I think once upon a time my great grandmother told me stories about him. Maybe I would have to listen to those tapes and see what I could find.

Earl E – I don’t know a single story. Only child. My grandmother might know a story? I know lots about his parents, but almost nothing about him before his marriage and little about him later. Wonder if my father knows anything?

Granddaddy S – I know about him as an adult, somewhat, but not as a child. Again, I wonder if my father knows anything.

Granddaddy O – Wonder if my grandmother knows about this? He was a boxer. He was once in the Navy. And I am sure he was a ladies man.

Looks like if I want to write a story about a grandfather, I have lots of research to do.

Anyone on my husband’s side? I guess I should ask those questions of people. I have NO clue about any of them.

I think all of this lack of information is sad because I think that these people are extraordinary lives and they are people to look up to, and yet I know nothing. The information will just fade.

Maybe I should write a story about when my dad was a kid and when my husband’s dad was a kid. Wonder if I could convince my father to write his own story? He is such a good writer. I think that he would do an outstanding job, but he might not have the desire. Wonder if my father-in-law would do it? He is good at telling stories.

Well, looks like, again, I have lots of ideas generated. Maybe I should just jump right in with two feet and start tomorrow and start? But, of course, I like the stream of consciousness writing as well. It’s somehow liberating and fun! It almost has a cleansing effect.