It was an ordinary day. Thinking back to when I first began to write this blog. I did a search on this site and found my first story was on Wednesday, September 2, 2009. I titled it "The 'White Rat' story." I began to read it and found it was about half the length of most of my stories that I write today. I originally decided to write a blog since I enjoyed reading stories as well as writing, but didn't want to write a book for fear I would get part way through it and quit. Many people dream of penning their first novel, short story or book of poems, but never realize their dream. I made the decision to begin writing and if no one would read it...well at least I had given it a try. I thought back to my English teacher, Mrs. Clare Eisenhart, who in my junior year of high school told us never to give up writing as long as you can still hold your pencil or pen. Well, Mrs. Eisenhart, you were right! I gave it a try and I loved it! I may not be the best writer, as she once told me in her class, but she also told me to never give up my dream. I don't particularly care to have anything I write published, so writing a blog was my choice. Getting started was the toughest part and looking at that blank page on my screen in front of me was at first overwhelming. But, after striking a few keys, the words exploded from my mind as my fingers placed the words on the screen. At first I wondered what to write in my blog, but before long, my topics became evident. Stories of my life had never been written before and who can write them better than me! I discovered that gaining perfection in my writing technique would have to be developed over time, since there was no way I was going to obtain perfection when I first started. That's one more thing I can remember Mrs. Eisenhart telling me. I recently read a column that listed the 14 quotes to motivate the writer inside of me. After reading them I thought I would include them with my story today just in case you might plan to begin your own blog. If I can do it, you more than likely can do it also. I'm sure that Mrs. Eisenhart would be so proud of me! Either that...or she's pulling out the rest of the hair that she had after my class graduated from High School.
Check out the following 14 Quotes to Motivate the "Writer Inside You" that were written by a few famous writers...
1. There are a thousand thoughts lying within a man that he does not know till he takes up the pen to write. ― William Makepeace Thackeray
2. You don't start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it's good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it. That's why I say one of the most valuable traits is persistence. It's just so easy to give up! ― Octavia E. Butler
3. If you have a limited amount of time to write, you just sit down and do it. You might not write well every day, but you can always edit a bad page. You can’t edit a blank page. ― Jodi Picoult
4. Don’t be nervous. Work calmly, joyously, recklessly on whatever is in hand.
— Henry Miller
5. You should write because you love the shape of stories and sentences and the creation of different words on a page. — Annie Proulx
6. Writing has laws of perspective, of light and shade, just as painting does, or music. If you are born knowing them, fine. If not, learn them. Then rearrange the rules to suit yourself. — Truman Capote
7. The first draft is just you telling yourself the story. ― Terry Pratchett
8. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something. — Kurt Vonnegut
9. Your intuition knows what to write, so get out of the way.― Ray Bradbury
10. Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don’t try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It’s the one and only thing you have to offer. — Barbara Kingsolver
11. Write the kind of story you would like to read. People will give you all sorts of advice about writing, but if you are not writing something you like, no one else will like it either. — Meg Cabot
12. Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere. Start by getting something — anything — down on paper. A friend of mine says that the first draft is the down draft — you just get it down. — Anne Lamott
13. Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on. — Louis L’Amour
14. And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.
— Sylvia Plath
And... just in case you want to read, or re-read my very first story...
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 2009
It was an ordinary day. I was waiting for my Grandpap to take me to Root's Farmers Market in East Petersburg, PA. He often took his 12 year old grandson to the market for an ice cream cone or soft pretzel. Just the two of us! We ALWAYS wandered over to the livestock auction to see what was being bought and sold. Today they had the regular things such as chickens, guinea pigs, pigeons and rabbits, but today they also had a wooden box of 7 white rats. Some were full grown and some were babies. Some were 6" to 8" long while others were 12" to 18" long. THEY WERE RATS! Your routine white rat family. $2.00 he bid! Nobody else challenged him so we walked away with a new family for my house. We put the box in the trunk of his 2-tone green 1955 Buick and headed home. You see this was not something unusual since he often brought some kind of livestock home with us. Now that I am an adult with grandkids I wonder if he was trying to get even with his daughter and son-in-law, my Mother and Father. We put a wire screen over the wooden box and placed it in the cellar. I was able to hold the young rats, but didn't chance holding the big ones. They did have neat pink tails and big teeth. Naturally, I had to get rat pellets, vegetables, etc. for my new "pets". Sunday came and we headed to church for the morning. When we returned home I headed to the cellar to check on my new friends. As I headed down the open wooden steps I saw something run across the floor at the bottom of the steps. Oh My Gosh! The rats have escaped. I had never given my rats names, but at this point they were being called a variety of very bad names. They chewed through the wooden box. Big teeth, wooden box, Duh! Well, we had to catch them so my Dad and I found a peach basket and put it upside down with a small stick under one end of it with a string to the steps. We put food under the basket and waited quietly on the steps for the rats to take the bait. THEY REALLY DID! I remember that it took a long time, but we captured them all and this time put them in an aquarium. Good idea! I knew this was going to be the end of my new pets. We lived near the Lancaster Stockyards which was the busiest stockyards east of Chicago. Dad thought they certainly wouldn't mind a few more rats so we took them to the field next to the stockyards and said Goodbye to them. I wasn't really upset since I knew that my Grandpap was going to take me to Roots again very soon. I'll bet you can't wait to hear what happened on the next trip. It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.
PS - The answer to my story from yesterday titled "Who Am I? is HABIT!
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