The 2020 Daily Writing Challenge – February 24

/ JoHawkTheWriter / 3 Comments

2020 Daily Writing Challenge

Writing is like driving at night in the fog.
You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.
– E. L. Doctorow

Today is Day 55 of the 2020 Daily Writing Challenge.

Did you write yesterday? If you didn’t, what stopped you? Self-doubt can leave you feeling like a deer in the headlights, petrified, off-balance, and powerless. Instead of using your precious minutes to type even a handful of words on the page, you allow yourself to be distracted.

Perhaps you stare at a blank screen, convinced your work recounts an incoherent trip along a winding road leading you nowhere. Your vivid imagination has forsaken you, leaving you in a void of uninspired darkness. You suspect you are a fraud who will never be good enough.

Breathe. Think about the adventure you want your audience to experience, explore your plot, meet with your protagonist, and learn about his hero’s journey. Practice composing your favorite scene in your head. Eliminated distractions, lock worry in a cage with your evil antagonist, and just write. Remember what you love about writing and remind yourself this is about creating a world for your ideal reader. The story is the path you share, and your destination is the beginning of another tale.

Try it and let us know how you did in the comments below.

_________________________________________

Keep on writing.

Jo Hawk The Writer

Fasten Your Seat Belts, Its Going to be A Bumpy Ride – Daily Quote

/ JoHawkTheWriter / 7 Comments

when-you-choose-to-take-the-road-less-traveled-it-can-sometimes-be-a-bumpy-ride-along-the-way-but-if-youre-doing-it-for-the-right-reasons-then-the-reward-is-so-great.-gretchen-bleiler

They say 80% of Americans want to write a book. Few embark on the arduous journey, and fewer reach their target. The odds are stacked against aspiring authors. Stepping onto the path is perilous, unknown dangers lurk and abandoning the road sometimes feels like a viable option.

The prize lies ahead, not next to the trail, and not in the rearview mirror. Our compelling motivation fuels our ambition to reach the destination and attain our goal. If the purpose is important, if it emanates from the core of our being, if it is as vital as the air we breathe, it propels us forward, sustain us on our journey. With a fierce desire, the path is less daunting. The bumps are minor inconveniences, and we will win our reward.

Is your reason strong enough?

_________________________________________

Keep on writing.

Jo Hawk The Writer

The 2020 Daily Writing Challenge – February 23

/ JoHawkTheWriter / 3 Comments

2020 Daily Writing Challenge

Writing is like driving at night in the fog.
You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.
– E. L. Doctorow

Today is Day 54 of the 2020 Daily Writing Challenge.

Did you write yesterday? If you didn’t, what stopped you? Self-doubt can leave you feeling like a deer in the headlights, petrified, off-balance, and powerless. Instead of using your precious minutes to type even a handful of words on the page, you allow yourself to be distracted.

Perhaps you stare at a blank screen, convinced your work recounts an incoherent trip along a winding road leading you nowhere. Your vivid imagination has forsaken you, leaving you in a void of uninspired darkness. You suspect you are a fraud who will never be good enough.

Breathe. Think about the adventure you want your audience to experience, explore your plot, meet with your protagonist, and learn about his hero’s journey. Practice composing your favorite scene in your head. Eliminated distractions, lock worry in a cage with your evil antagonist, and just write. Remember what you love about writing and remind yourself this is about creating a world for your ideal reader. The story is the path you share, and your destination is the beginning of another tale.

Try it and let us know how you did in the comments below.

_________________________________________

Keep on writing.

Jo Hawk The Writer

Finding Inner Talent – Daily Quote

/ JoHawkTheWriter / 10 Comments

if-you-know-what-you-are-going-to-write-when-youre-writing-a-poem-its-going-to-be-average.-derek-walcott

There are a handful of activities I avoid because I lack talent. I have no sports skills. My face catches every baseball, while my hands act as inefficient shields. Dribbling a basketball devolves when the ball bounces off my shoe and bent in half, I stumble-run, chasing the careening orb across the floor. Let’s not discuss my ineptitude in soccer, volleyball, or any sport that requires me to run. I don’t sing least I set the neighborhood dogs to howling like wolves, and I don’t write poetry.

I love poems and I have memorized many, including Patterns, by Amy Lowell, The Raven, by Edgar Allan Poe, and Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, by Robert Frost. I adore The Tyger, by William Blake, Friends, Romans, Countrymen, Marc Anthony’s monologue from Julius Caesar, and countless works by Emily Dickinson. I can recite a Shakespeare sonnet, and Sea Canes by Derek Walcott. I also have a deep fondness of Walcott’s epic poem Omeros, though I would not attempt to commit it to memory.

I poems I memorize, I choose with great care because I know they will live with me forever. I seek work that connects me with the poet, poems where I feel the emotions they must have felt as they wrote. I enjoy rich imagery, and subtle shades of meaning, which beacons my soul to return time and time, again.

When I sit to compose, I try to clear my mind and allow my passions to embed themselves in the words, and embrace each phrase. It only happens when my heart leads the writing, not my head. Knowing what I intend to write dampens the message.

Do you write with your feelings?

_________________________________________

Keep on writing.

Jo Hawk The Writer

The 2020 Daily Writing Challenge – February 22

/ JoHawkTheWriter / 2 Comments

2020 Daily Writing Challenge

Writing is like driving at night in the fog.
You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.
– E. L. Doctorow

Today is Day 53 of the 2020 Daily Writing Challenge.

Did you write yesterday? If you didn’t, what stopped you? Self-doubt can leave you feeling like a deer in the headlights, petrified, off-balance, and powerless. Instead of using your precious minutes to type even a handful of words on the page, you allow yourself to be distracted.

Perhaps you stare at a blank screen, convinced your work recounts an incoherent trip along a winding road leading you nowhere. Your vivid imagination has forsaken you, leaving you in a void of uninspired darkness. You suspect you are a fraud who will never be good enough.

Breathe. Think about the adventure you want your audience to experience, explore your plot, meet with your protagonist, and learn about his hero’s journey. Practice composing your favorite scene in your head. Eliminated distractions, lock worry in a cage with your evil antagonist, and just write. Remember what you love about writing and remind yourself this is about creating a world for your ideal reader. The story is the path you share, and your destination is the beginning of another tale.

Try it and let us know how you did in the comments below.

_________________________________________

Keep on writing.

Jo Hawk The Writer

Capturing A Moment in Fiction – Daily Quote

/ JoHawkTheWriter / 9 Comments

fiction-is-like-a-spiders-web-attached-ever-so-slightly-perhaps-but-still-attached-to-life-at-all-four-corners.-often-the-attachment-is-scarcely-perceptible.-virginia-woolf

Is it strange I like spider webs? I am none too fond of the spiders themselves, but their wispy creations are often spectacular.  Add a misty morning dew to reflect the first gentle rays of sunlight, and you have something straight from a fairy tale. The webs remind me of snowflakes, extraordinary, perfect, and beautiful. If you are foolhardy and attempt to touch them, hold them, they dissolve as if they were a figment of the imagination.

I love Virginia’s perspective and the idea that fiction must maintain even a tenuous connection with the real world. Fiction, at its best, emulates a perfect moment, presenting a novel viewpoint through a fictional realm, and pristine fantasies, expressed with magnificent words. They are true figments, with each reader conjuring a version, shaped, and colored by the totality of the reader’s personal experiences. We step into a story and create a unique rendition. As minds expand, and outlooks are altered by daily experiences, do we ever read the same story twice?

How do you attach your stories to reality?

_________________________________________

Keep on writing.

Jo Hawk The Writer

The 2020 Daily Writing Challenge – February 21

/ JoHawkTheWriter / 3 Comments

2020 Daily Writing Challenge

Writing is like driving at night in the fog.
You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.
– E. L. Doctorow

Today is Day 52 of the 2020 Daily Writing Challenge.

Did you write yesterday? If you didn’t, what stopped you? Self-doubt can leave you feeling like a deer in the headlights, petrified, off-balance, and powerless. Instead of using your precious minutes to type even a handful of words on the page, you allow yourself to be distracted.

Perhaps you stare at a blank screen, convinced your work recounts an incoherent trip along a winding road leading you nowhere. Your vivid imagination has forsaken you, leaving you in a void of uninspired darkness. You suspect you are a fraud who will never be good enough.

Breathe. Think about the adventure you want your audience to experience, explore your plot, meet with your protagonist, and learn about his hero’s journey. Practice composing your favorite scene in your head. Eliminated distractions, lock worry in a cage with your evil antagonist, and just write. Remember what you love about writing and remind yourself this is about creating a world for your ideal reader. The story is the path you share, and your destination is the beginning of another tale.

Try it and let us know how you did in the comments below.

_________________________________________

Keep on writing.

Jo Hawk The Writer

The Upside of Being Sick – Daily Quote

/ JoHawkTheWriter / 16 Comments

interesting-things-always-come-from-being-really-exhausted-and-really-sick.-adam-driver.

I have been off my coffee since Monday morning. That is never a good sign. Exhaustion, achy muscles, boiling hot in one moment, then teeth-chattering cold the next, have ruled my daily existence. Regular doses of white caplets do nothing to ease the pounding in my head. A darkened room, a fluffy duvet, and sweet sleep offer the only escape. Days and nights meld. The passage of minutes and hours develop a rhythm that defies the norms associated with the accepted standards.

My brain left to its own devices declares a play day. My thoughts wander down overgrown paths, exploring avenues we normally zoom past. I discover characters in unexpected settings, their dialog reveals shocking truths and unimagined motivations. My mind spins new stories, introduces me to interesting protagonists, and intimidating antagonists. The cast grows, and red yarn connectors tie them together in a tangled web of intrigue.

When I wake, I frantically scribble notes. I try to drive as many stakes as possible to anchor the richly textured tapestries to the realm of reality before they dissolve into wispy filaments that retreat to the deep recesses of my dream world. I read my hasty scratchings and smile. There is enough material to keep my writing fueled for a long time. It is a good thing I only get sick once a year.

How does sickness affect you?

_________________________________________

Keep on writing.

Jo Hawk The Writer

The 2020 Daily Writing Challenge – February 20

/ JoHawkTheWriter / 3 Comments

2020 Daily Writing Challenge

Writing is like driving at night in the fog.
You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.
– E. L. Doctorow

Today is Day 51 of the 2020 Daily Writing Challenge.

Did you write yesterday? If you didn’t, what stopped you? Self-doubt can leave you feeling like a deer in the headlights, petrified, off-balance, and powerless. Instead of using your precious minutes to type even a handful of words on the page, you allow yourself to be distracted.

Perhaps you stare at a blank screen, convinced your work recounts an incoherent trip along a winding road leading you nowhere. Your vivid imagination has forsaken you, leaving you in a void of uninspired darkness. You suspect you are a fraud who will never be good enough.

Breathe. Think about the adventure you want your audience to experience, explore your plot, meet with your protagonist, and learn about his hero’s journey. Practice composing your favorite scene in your head. Eliminated distractions, lock worry in a cage with your evil antagonist, and just write. Remember what you love about writing and remind yourself this is about creating a world for your ideal reader. The story is the path you share, and your destination is the beginning of another tale.

Try it and let us know how you did in the comments below.

_________________________________________

Keep on writing.

Jo Hawk The Writer

Pushing Past Failure – Daily Quote

/ JoHawkTheWriter / 6 Comments

you-fail-only-if-you-stop-writing.-ray-bradbury

Some weeks are harder than others. They try your patience. Every step you take is a struggle as you trudge forward. Failing, not reaching your stated goal, is demoralizing, and painful, and a test.

I have no intention of succumbing to defeat in the long run. I won’t be denied. Instead, I recommit to my intentions, and I write and rework my goals. Sometimes though, rest is a good idea. Tonight, I plan to relax, recharge, and sleep like a baby. Tomorrow presents another chance to win.

What challenges will you take?

_________________________________________

Keep on writing.

Jo Hawk The Writer