The Story of How a Blog Was Born

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fiction, prompts, short story, writing

The following was based upon a prompt in my writers group. The prompt was to write out a step-by-step instructions as if you were spelling it out for a complete novice or someone who did not speak your native language. Then take those instructions and tell a story with them. Mine, of course, was on how to create a blog on WordPress.com.

Her fingers trembled on the keys. I can do this, she thought, chewing her lip.

Site name. Name of site.

The pain of the moment struck her chest, pressing the air out with a wheeze. Curling around the pain, each click of the keyboard a Morse code of dread, she typed the name.

The “Get a Blog” blue button pulsed a beat then drifted across the screen. She smeared her left hand across her watering eyes and stabbed the button with the mouse in her right.

“An email is flying across the web to your email inbox. Please check it to verify your site registration.”

The gentle, lighthearted tone helped her breathe a little easier, An unexpected kindness. She switched to the email tab in her web browser and reloaded the page, her new-found patience serving her well.

There is was. Confirmation of the moment.

A couple more clicks and the Settings Screen filled the dark room with brilliant white light.

It asked her to commit. To make this real.

She wasn’t ready. It wasn’t time. Too soon. Too late.

It had to be done.

It was done.

With courage she never knew before, strength she never thought possible, energy that rose from depths impossible to comprehend six months ago, six months in the past when she could wake up, heart filled with the joy at the fresh start of a new day, eager to plunge into new tasks, embrace new ideas, meet old friends and new strangers, hugs, laughter, meals shared, events toasted…six months later every moment is dark, filled with agony. A shared suffering but suffering all the same…

Fingers like sausages stuffed with lead she typed:

“Alexander Smith, educator, husband, father, kind heart. 1948 – 2013”

and clicked Enter.

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Journaling isn’t as easy as it sounds

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how to journal, how to write, journaling, journals, why journal, why write, writing

In one way or another, I’ve been writing every day of my life for…let’s just say decades. Now that I’ve put a simple task before me to write in this “journal” daily, I find obstacles every where I turn.

My days are filled with writing technical articles, social media commentaries and replies, and responding endlessly to emails. I’m glued to the computer, keyboard, and mouse continuously almost every waking hour. When I’m away from the desktop computer, it’s the laptop, tablet, or phone.

Someone added up all the articles I typically wrote and came up with an average 1,975 articles a year. Yet I can’t seem to get to this journaling business more than a couple times a week.

I’ve started to study the art of the journal, especially memoir and family history journaling in preparation for the Family History Blogging course I’ll be teaching in Spring Quarter, and I’m so impressed by those who wrote great letters and journals, recording their thoughts on paper. Sure, they didn’t have a computer nor the near desperate panic of work ethic we have today, but they found time to record their thoughts. Why is it so hard for me.

Sometimes I think I have no thoughts – well, nothing original. Or my words fall flat with lackluster language.

Discussing journals with friends during our recent Thanksgiving holiday party, they spoke of the power in the written language to preserve a moment with flowery, descriptive words. One person told of focusing on a single subject, like a tree outside the window and start to describe that every day, commenting on the changes, weather, and eventually the things on it, around it, then about the world, all linked together.

A couple told of their long distance romance in the early years and how they wrote journals more than letters to each other. They’d exchange them when they got together and write responses in each other’s journals. What a magical way to romance.

Yet, for the first time in my life I look at the blank screen before me and the words won’t come.

Instead, I write about how all of this is just too hard.

It will get better tomorrow.

November 2012 The Ballot Box

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ballots, cities, election, elephant garlic festival, how to vote, israel, north plains, oregon, politics, pumpkin ridge golf course, small town life, stories, town, town life, vote, voting, writing

I wait in line for my turn to vote.

My mind casts back to all the different ways people have voted over thousands of years. By a show of hand. By stub of pencil. By flipping a lever. By punching a hole.

Today, I vote by car.

Well, not really, but it feels like it as I slowly move forward in the line approaching the big metal ballot box outside of the Police Station and Public Library in North Plains, Oregon.