November is National Writers Month: Final Week

Dear Writers,

Please join me for our final meeting. Thanksgiving is a busy time, so we will meet after the holidays for our last November is National Writers Month Meetup.

Pens are flowing unimpeded across paper, fingers are tap dancing away on keyboards, and voices are crooning into recording devices, capturing ideas and stories as fast as they come into writers' minds. What an exciting time to be a writer!

How do we keep these ideas coming to us? How do we build our writer lives in such a way that the struggle becomes not what to write, but how to put it all on the page fast enough? We do it one brick at a time. Bricks are anything writer-related, events, thoughts, or activities, that we find in our environment. We don't have to look far to find something going on in our own community that can be used as a brick in our foundation as writers.

What are some of these bricks? Walking is one, walking anywhere that stimulates your senses as a writer. For me, that means a three mile stroll around the Lafayette Reservoir, any time of day, in almost any kind of weather. No turn around the lake is the same. Each time I walk the black asphalt path, I see, feel, smell and hear something different that lodges in my mind, a puzzle-piece that fits neatly into one of my many short stories, or triggers a new idea for a new story. For someone else, it might mean a jaunt along a busy downtown street, passing giant paned windows behind which bustling business is underway, the noise of traffic, the blinking of changing street lights, the laughter and chatter of shoppers rushing past. Movement activates the mind.

Communicating with other writers is yet another. Leading November is National Writers Month in my small corner of the writer world is every bit as encouraging and stimulating for me as it is for those of you joining in the adventure. Finding like-minded people to discuss ideas, processes and stumbling blocks writers experience in their quest to put their art on the page is essential. The writing life is mostly lived alone with a story, but coming out now and then to socialize helps you to bounce ideas off others, bolster one another's resolve, and build your writer life.

Writers interested in meeting with me in person will find me in the Lafayette Library Tuesday morning (November 27) and/or Wednesday evening (November 28). Come meet with fellow writers in an informal setting, chat about writing processes and encourage each other to write.

Please post questions or concerns about your writing and I will respond within 24-48 hours during the month of November.

RSVP for further details.

Creativity is a universal given. Anyone can live a creative life. Whether we put obstacles in our own path or others hinder our growth, it is up to us to find a way around those limitations and move forward in a positive light.

Barbara Millman Cole, ©2007