#Creative Life – Page 3 – Rebekah Lyn Books

A Writer is Born ~Part 2

LOS ALAMOS

We moved to Los Alamos, New Mexico when I was thirteen. For a time, we saw atomic-bomb mushrooms from our front yard every day about noon and then it would rain. In Los Alamos we had a brand new school and the best of everything because the town belonged to the University of California. Dad was a security guard who usually worked at the main gate where everyone who went through had to show their I. D.

Our English teacher, Mrs. McCloskey, a kind and loving person, said I had an ability to write. Our Spanish teacher liked my ear for language. Biology interested me. I recall the frog I dissected and it’s tiny heart I found inside. I suppose that helped me learn to pay attention to detail. Writers need to know all these things and I’m grateful for the assistance of teachers throughout my life.

We had a memorable writing experience in our two-hour core class, which included English and History. Our teacher was young, male, and single, and we all had crushes on him. Our assignment? Turn Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar into a comedy, and play it on the stage. While we wrote and compared notes, we played around and laughed a lot. That was a wonderful collaboration. On the day of the play we were having so much fun, we barely noticed that our audience filed out when school was over, even though the play wasn’t over. Maybe I learned about editing from that. Cut, cut, cut.

My Tribe — My tribe in high school. I’m the girl with the number 5 on her sleeve.

ALBUQUERQUE

Six weeks into my senior year dad got a job as an Atomic Energy Commission Courier and the family moved to Albuquerque. Dad was gone a great deal, and as it happened Mother’s new job took her to Nevada from time to time. My brother and I were alone on my seventeenth birthday, so I did what I always liked to do, which was to lay on my bed with Hit Parade Magazine and its lyrics and sing along with my favorite singers. There’s no telling the ways that helped my writing, but I’m sure they were many.

In my Senior year I started learning about true romance first hand. I’d had plenty of dates before, but this one guy…He was in the typing class ahead of me, and because we shared a typewriter he waited for me to get there and I hurried. Eventually he started taking me to the church his family attended and there I went forward to the song, “Love Lifted Me,” and was later baptized.

The Feeding of a Writer

Ever since I first learned about the unconscious (or subconscious) mind in Psychology 101, I’ve been fascinated with what the mind under the mind can do. I came away with a simple concept that has worked for my whole life. I’m sure many religious people as well as scientists would find plenty to challenge but it works for me.

Like a video camera, the unconscious mind records every single thing we experience our whole lives. We then react to the present out of a vast store of memories. Concentrating on what is going on in the moment is a good antidote for this phenomena. We can change some of our reactions. We can also learn many ways to use the unconscious, instead of being used by it. We can store good things, such as the concepts of the Bible, we can think good thoughts, and we can pray. Those are the tools God has given us to manage our lives, and they are powerful. In fact, the unconscious must obey whatever our will or mind decides. That why believing in God and the good He puts in us is so vital.

So how can we use our unconscious to help in our writing? One way we probably know is to ask the unconscious to solve problems for us. Take a shortcut, though, and ask God what to do instead. Then either forget it or continue to thank him that the answer is on the way. Eventually a solution will come and it will be simple, true, and right, as praying enhances the process a hundredfold. “You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.”

I was having a hard time writing my blogs, filling out interview questions, getting ready for speaking engagements, and even organizing my files. I’d get up in the morning meaning to work on my novel, but by the time I did everything else — including emails, the day was over. In my frustration I prayed about how to use my time more satisfactorily.

My prayer has been answered. Now, I work as much and as diligently on the blogs, organization, etc. as possible for the first few days of the week. I like it, but still I reward myself. The unconscious likes rewards it likes everything positive. For the last days of the week, I get to work on Go West. That way I can focus on one thing at a time. Once I go back to the novel, ideas clamor to be heard. Then when I switch back to business, I get more ideas that I can accommodate. I stockpile them for later when a busy season comes along.

I further compartmentalize the writing time by using my journal first thing in the morning to think things out. When I do sit down at the computer, I set my stove’s timer for thirty minutes. My chiropractor told me not to sit for more than twenty at a time, but I negotiated for thirty. He said, “Only if you walk at least a mile a day.” I do. Because I’m absorbed I’m amazed every time the timer rings. When the day ends, I can’t believe I’ve worked two hours, three, four, without boredom, pressure, or procrastination. I’m on a roll and I love it.

Matthew 7:7.

Creative Life~Rituals and Routines

Rituals and routines. We all have them. What do you need to do before you can start to write? For years, I’ve needed to check and answer all my emails the minute I sat down at the computer. I love emails, especially letters from friends, but anything else is compulsive for me, as well.

The easiest writing I do is by hand, in my journal, stream of consciousness and venting. I can spend hours at that. Sometimes I’ll cull an idea that later becomes a blog. Then one day I was writing about journaling and I began to think about the difference between a journal and a diary. Also, I was looking forward to my grandson’s daily posts either on Face Book or in his blog because he had gone to Japan.

I do my journaling by hand because Julia Cameron suggests it in all her books, starting with, The Artist’s Way. I can’t really explain the differences. Computer writing goes fast and is not too hard, but handwriting in my journal may allow me more of a feeling of privacy and freedom.

So I decided to do both. A journal is a journey of life; a diary is a listing of the things that happened in a day. Now I’m keeping a dairy on the computer and a journal in a heavy-paper sketchbook. Why didn’t I think of that before? It’s great, it will help my production of blog posts for Writing Life on Rebekah Lyn books, and My Take on Old Things are New.

The big surprise is I feel more compelled to start with my daily diary than I do to go to email! Wow. How cool. I’m set free from yet another addiction. Today, I spent the whole morning starting with the dairy but going on to finish several posts. I’ll have to wait and see how it works with novels. But, I haven’t seen my email today, so ta, ta for now. I deserve it, don’t you agree?