Tag: creative writing

Day 12: Increasing Commenting Confidence

~ Meg ~ 1 Comment

I decided to comment here in response to this post from 2013: Musings: Do You! rather than on their blog.  Two years gone by and all…  Anyway the quote was another by Emerson:  “Imitation is suicide.  Insist on yourself. Never imitate.”

Most of us have heard that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right?  But what’s usually going on when people say that to you?  Isn’t it usually in response to someone having imitated us and it made us mad?  It can be as simple as someone getting the same haircut, or as complicated as someone competing with us for the same job.

What prompts imitation?  Is it a lack of self confidence?  A desire to be accepted by the crowd?  Honest self examination is necessary.  Now this is not to say that we cannot be inspired by others, after all this post has been inspired by the Emerson quote.  Yet, there is a big difference between inspiration and imitation.  Inspiration is a spark that ignites individual creativity whereas imitation suppresses that creativity.  We become copyists.  I believe I’ll file this quote away and return to it when I need to remind myself to be myself and not somebody else.

Big thank you to Tim Gatewood for suggesting this quote!

Wicked Word Wednesday

~ Meg ~ 14 Comments

Or:  How I Learned to Start Worrying and Be Afraid of Flying Monkeys

So yesterday on kelli blogs she proposed an idea for a weekly feature called Wicked Word Wednesday.  Kelli will post a word and we can all join in with a story, anecdote, poem, what have you, and play along.  What better word to launch the day than “Wicked”, right?  Kelli’s post was about the Wizard of Oz and it prompted a discussion among several of us as to how terrifying that movie was to all of us as children.  Which leads me to my follow up post:

What the hell were my parents thinking?!?!?

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That’s me far left, at age 20 with the old people!

I grew up as the only child of older parents.  In fact, my father being 20 years older than my mother, was 55 when I was born.  Surprise!  I’m not sure they knew what to do with me.  I found myself in grownup settings a lot.  By myself.  (See that old photo of the cocktail party?  That’s me in the corner with my Shirley Temple and a coloring book.)  That’s messed up, right?

Now I realize that some of the experiences I had growing up have made me what I am today and I wouldn’t change those things.  I’m content being alone, I don’t bore easily, I love to read and I appreciate art and history from being exposed to them at an early age.

However, and I hope this doesn’t sound whiny, my upbringing has left me with “issues”.  I mean, beyond an irrational fear of quicksand, hitting my head and getting amnesia and encountering flying monkeys in a forest full of evil trees!

Mom started perming my hair when I was in grade school and patting a little rouge on my pale cheeks.  What, not pretty enough? Mom played the piano and even taught music but wouldn’t give me lessons.  Not talented enough?  Aw, come on!  We’re going to the movies.  To see James Bond’s latest escapade.  That’s appropriate for a grade schooler, right?   I kept wondering why Bond was always going to bed in the middle of the day.  That guy needed a lot of naps.

Anyway, looking back on it now, I can laugh (sort of) but I really have to wonder what the hell they were thinking?

Day 8: playing catch up!

~ Meg ~ 2 Comments

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(Here’s my other workspace!)

I had a killer busy day today, thus I’m getting to this assignment later than I’d hoped!  That being said, I really enjoyed perusing the posts in my reader today and reaching out to some folks I hadn’t engaged with before.  Blogging 101 has opened up such a great new world, with fellow writers, people journaling their projects and travels, sharing their amazing photographs and their even more amazing stories.  Here are 4 of the blogs I visited today:

Kelli Blogs a writer with a great sense of humor and an interesting story to tell. No spoilers, I’ll let you discover for yourself!

Whitney at the OPRF Life who is renovating an old house, I mean SERIOUSLY down to the bare walls renovating!  Watching the progress is going to be awesome!

Travel Much? A hilarious account of Olive Ole and her family, from Norway and their adventures in Spain.

RunTroyRun Confessions of a lazy runner, plus pictures!

See you all tomorrow!  xo