Skip to main content

Story Laboratory: Getting Help

For this week's story assignment, I decided to do a story lab since I haven't done many of these. Of the listed options, I chose to read through some of the posts on the "Advice to Writers" site, and I was not disappointed! Some of them were funny, others were kind of abrasive but they all had a little nugget of wisdom to offer. Of the ones I read, I found a couple that I liked because they seemed like good writing advice, but I found more that I liked because they seemed like good life advice. Here are the two that I liked the most.



Be a good steward of your gifts. Protect your time. Feed your inner life. Avoid too much noise. Read good books, have good sentences in your ears. Be by yourself as often as you can. Walk. Take the phone off the hook. Work regular hours.

-Jane Kenyon



The useless days will add up to something. The shitty waitressing jobs. The hours writing in your journal. The long meandering walks. The hours reading poetry and story collections and novels and dead people’s diaries and wondering about sex and God and whether you should shave under your arms or not. These things are your becoming.

-Cheryl Strayed 


I think the reason that these two stood out to me so much, is because they represent some ideas that have been floating around in my head recently. 

The first one relates to all of these ideas presented by Brene Brown in a talk she gave related to her book, "Daring Greatly." In her talk, Brene covers a whole bunch of information and guidance around living a vulnerable and fulfilled life. I couldn't possibly explain it all, partially because I don't even understand it all myself, but this quote gave me the same feeling in my gut. So if you have time, I really recommend checking out her work. I was going to include a link to her website, but they are having domain issues at the moment. 

As for the second quote, I have been thinking a lot recently about growing up and being an adult. Although I have felt more mature and capable than my age would suggest for just about my whole life, recently I have started to wonder if I will ever stop feeling like a thirteen year old pretending to be an adult. I have wondered when it will feel like real life has started, and whether marriage is a sham the patriarchy created to keep us down while simultaneously looking forward to getting engaged after graduation. It has all kind of been a whorl wind and it doesn't look like that will stop anytime soon. So, it was comforting to read the quote from Cheryl Strayed and think that maybe this is all going just according to plan.  


The photo over there is from TheDigitalArtist via Pixabay. 


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Introduction

Hello!  My name is Cat and although this will be a blog about mythology and folklore, today I want to tell you all a little bit about myself and my summer. So, to start off I am a civil engineering student here at the University of Oklahoma. I will be graduating in December, but I will be staying on for another year to complete my master’s degree, also in civil engineering but with a focus on structural engineering. Civil engineering includes the design of buildings, infrastructure, water supply systems, waste water treatment systems, and traffic control systems to name a few.  Over this summer I had the opportunity to work as an intern for a civil engineering company and learned a lot from the experience. I learned to design pump stations, outline drainage areas, how to do the runoff calculations for inlets, culverts and drainage ditches, and a bunch of stuff about low impact development, but most importantly I learned that I don’t like doing any of those things....
7 comments
Read more

Famous Last Words: Migraines

Hey there! As you may have guessed already because this is an extra credit post, I fell behind last week. This time partially due to procrastination and partially due to a migraine. It was great. Let me tell you about it.  I had been feeling really great all week, getting my work done, not too stressed, and like usual I was planning to do the three weekend assignments on Sunday. Yes, I know I shouldn't wait until the last day to do them. Yes, I know this whole thing could have been avoided by doing them early, but hey, hind sight, spilled milk, you know the drill. Plus, I didn't have any other homework due on Monday, unlike usual, so I thought I would have plenty of time. (Here is where the ominous music should play.) However, that afternoon I started having a migraine attack. This quickly spiraled into me sitting and staring at the wall until it stopped later that night. Sadly, I didn't get much work done, as you can imagine.  Luckily I am back on my feet today, alth...
Post a Comment
Read more

Week 2 Story: The Stone Woman

Author's note: I wrote this story after reading Pygmalion and wanting to develop on the statues story. So this story gives the statue a back story, and rewrites some of the original tale, in the form of my character named Ivory. I hope you enjoy it.  In ancient Greece there was a woman named Ivory that had grown up in a village far from any city. Her family farmed the land around their home and raised livestock. When she was older, her father would take her with him on the long journey to the city when it was time to sell their crops at the market. One year at the market, Ivory met the most beautiful man she had ever seen. This man’s name was Deveron, and he was known widely for his charm and beauty. Soon after they met, Deveron and Ivory fell in love and were married.  They built a small home on the land Ivory’s family owned and continued to farm the land and live good lives that seemed to be blessed by the gods. They were so happy in their love and in their life th...
3 comments
Read more