The Who, What, Where, Why and WHEN of Writing - Part 5 by Diane Bator

 

By Diane Bator

Today we’re at the end of my original list of the five Ws of writing. We’ve already gone through:

Who – as in Who are YOU as a writer?

What – for What do you want to write?

Where – location, location, location.

Why – what drives you?

This blog post is brought to you by When. When can mean a couple of things, the best time of day to write or the best time of your life to start writing. Let’s start with the time of day, shall we?

Some writers swear they are the most creative early in the morning. In order to be at their best, they start the day by doing Morning Pages as per Julia Cameron in her book The Artist’s Way. Julia describes Morning Pages as “three pages of longhand writing, strictly stream-of-consciousness.” (The Artists Way, page 10.) A lot of writers I know use this time to clear the noisy thoughts from their minds so they can focus on the task ahead. Their creative writing. Some writers even find ideas come from this flow of consciousness, sometimes while they sip their morning coffee or tea.

For me personally, I used to get up before I awoke my kids for school when they were younger and was happy even when I only had time to write a page or two out on my back porch. Now, I’m able to carve out time in the morning before my full-time job since my kids are much older. At least a couple days per week, I will use my half hour lunch break to write as well and like to keep a couple evenings open to create as well.

Recently someone on social media asked how old you have to be to become a writer. That created a whole new conversation and received a lot of answers. Some not so nice as people are bound to be online. It did prompt me to do a little digging.

I’ve been a storyteller and writer since I was young and still have handwritten stories and poems from when I was a teenager when my first two poems were published. I was about 15 years old.

There are no real age limits to writing or even being published. The youngest person I discovered online was Dorothy Straight who wrote her books at age 4 and was published her book “How the World Began” at age 6 in 1964. The oldest was Jim Downing who published “The Other Side of Infamy” in 2016 at the age of 102!

A few of the more famous authors published at various ages are:

·       Age 21 – Victor Hugo and Mary Shelley (Frankenstein)

·       Age 22 – Margaret Atwood and Ray Bradbury

·       Age 24 – Ernest Hemingway and Jack London

·       Age 28 – Jack Kerouac

·       Age 30 – Agatha Christie and Mark Twain. It is also interesting to note Stephen King had published Carrie, Salem’s Lot, and The Shining all before the age of 30.

·       Age 41 – Maya Angelou

·       Age 50 – Bram Stoker (Dracula)

·       Age 57 – Anna Sewell (Black Beauty)

·       Age 66 – Frank McCourt (Angela’s Ashes)

I belong to a writing group and love that our ages range from 25 to mid-eighties. Some are published, some have been working on the same books for many years, and some just attend to write and learn. We all have that one common love though: Writing. It has no age limit, education, or socio-economic limits.

All you need is a pen and paper to get started…

DianeBator

Author of Wild Blue Mysteries, Gilda Wright Mysteries and Glitter Bay Mysteries

Mom of 3 boys and 2 cats and a mouse who is too smart for mousetraps...

I Miss Camping - But so much more to do

  

A couple years ago, we sold our camper and bought a house. It was the right decision. Camping was only a couple months a year and maybe six camping trips at best, where as the house is permanent. 

Of course along with the house comes other responsibilities. Cleaning and painting, just to get the house ready to live in for one. The place was filthy. I think they previous residents had food fights in every room. Seriously, there was food streaked down every wall in every room. Okay, every room but the bathroom. 

Apparently the people who lived here previously (renters) had tempers. I heard she kicked the man out several times and he broke in. Obviously, the missing screens, windows replaced with Plexiglas, and damaged entry doors was proof that someone broke in or attempted to break in often. 

At any rate, we had our hands full just cleaning. Add to that discovering a hole in the bathtub, that even the inspector missed, we ended up gutting the bathroom. 
But all of that is done and out of the way.  On to the outside. Of course there's normal lawn maintenance, cutting the grass, which is fairly easy in the front. I have a self-propelled lawn mower. The shrubs needed trimming, which I attempted and came to the conclusion, they're too old and will have to be replaced. Next year's project or at least not until fall. I planted a few flowers in the front and my son painted our house - it was in desperate need and we'd really have loved to reside it, but that wasn't in the budget. Besides, we needed a new entry door and  storm door. Once the garage door is painted, the house itself will be done. On to the back yard.  Lord, help us. We aren't sure what to do there.  We had the maple tree cut down last year - it was leaning toward the neighbors and the roots made it impossible to cut the grass. It scared the heck out of me every time we had a storm. So down it went. This year we had the oak removed after we noticed several squirrels going into a hole where a branch had previously been cut. And there were several other

holes just not as deep.  I asked for a price in trimming the tree and cutting it down. I pointed out the hole, and he didn't even give me a price for trimming it. The maple tree, he had said there wasn't anything wrong with, that it was healthy. Not so the oak. (Not to mention I didn't care for all the leaves to rake and the acorns, oh the acorns, millions and millions of acorns. I won't miss that tree.)

My kids wanted the wood from both trees so, the tree removal crew stacked everything in a pile, cut to firewood size.  The kids rented a log-splitter and came over and split the wood. It was an all day project. We started the day with coffee and donuts, I made sloppy joes for lunch and hubby grilled a turkey for dinner. Of course, it was one of the hottest days this year, but they did a great job and they'll have plenty of firewood for next year.   They took the wood from the maple (cut last year) for their camping trips. I don't mind telling you, I was happy to see it disappear, although I now have another huge pile and this time in the middle of our yard. since the back part of our yard floods something terrible. One of my neighbors said there used to be a creek back there before they built the houses. Truthfully, I wish they would have left the creek. I don't need a pond every spring. We even had ducks. After the rainy May and June, I didn't think the yard would ever dry.  

Which leads me to my next problem. What to do? It would take truck loads of dirt to fill it in.  And I'm not sure that would even solve the problem. For now I guess I'll just keep cutting the part of grass that isn't under water and leave the rest for another year. We have an idea what we'd like to do back there, but that will be a project for another year. 

Anyway, back to my original statement. I still miss camping. The kids all went for the 4th of July and it's the first year we've been alone. Usually we celebrate with them, but this year, it was just the two of us. I really really miss camping - or maybe I just miss the kids. 

August New Releases from BWL Publishing and monthly Free Read

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