So what book was it???

exactly, I was wondering the same thing!

A Breath of Snow and Ashes by Diana Gabaldon :)

Heh! A Breath of Snow and Ashes by Diana Gabaldon

I write things I feel like writing about. An idea that pops up and a bell rings in my brain: "Ding dong - blog material!". And then I write it. Not that it has to be anything important or so, it can be utter nonsense really, but I just want to write it, so I do. :)

/Mia
http://mias.blogg.se

That happens quite often, but then when I sit down to write about, sometimes quite awhile later, I can't remember what it was! Argh.

Bulletpoints are great for those times where's there is stuff to say but no real coherent way to smush it into paragraphs. You've noticed I've done it very few times in my blogging life, but it's definitely handy.

I know how it feels to long for those friends that you've had ALWAYS - childhood friends, people you fought over Legos with - because I don't have a single one! Yet I love counting the number of years I've had the sweet friends I do have - and love that next year I'll have KNOWN Husband for ten years. Those numbers mean a lot to a military brat.

:) Sam

p.s. I love to read at the table. LOVE IT. Everything tastes best with a book!

It's so true! Everything does taste best with a book :) And this military brat totally agress with you :)

first, I am SO glad you are feeling better, whew! second, I think your approach is the best way-- sit with an intention to write and nothing more and see what spills out-- at least for me, in the blog post land, that is best because if I were to stop and analyze what I was writing I would absolutely block EVERYTHING-- every last thing. and one thing I've learned, is the posts I feel are the most worthless, idle, silly or should've been deleted before seeing the light of day are often the ones people respond to the most. all of which is to say, we are not the best judges of our own output.

and, I'm glad Anders has this lovely ritual with his old friends but HE BETTER GET HIS BUTT HOME so you can go out and have time to yourself after all his traveling-- !

bisous, bp

It's true, isn't it, that we are so often our own worst critics?! Self-sabotage, I suppose or jantelagen.

Also, ya flatterer!! :D

I love that feeling the end of a book too. There is often an accompanying feeling of sadness. Sort of missing the book, the characters, the movement of the plot.

Sometimes I have a little idea, a thought, something from my day I want to share. Often (as you know) it is simply a list. Sometimes I have been inspired. Sometimes I have been writing about something else, a letter, a narrative time-line bit,; and I adapt it or just put in down here too. Often I don't post.

That seems a really good way to go about it. I get a little worried that I often think, "oh! I want to write about that" but later when I'm actually in front of the computer there is nothing there, nothing left...a total blank. Stupid memory.

OK, first I'll ask my revealing question. (Revealing what you might ask? My ignorance I might answer.) And then I will respond to your comment.
1~(shh!) what's a bulletpoint?

2~See that crazed looking woman scrambling quickly off the bike path into the red car? Now she's digging around~ wow, throwing things around. She looks frantic and distressed!!?!!

Oh, she's writing~ wait, she's writing on an old wadded up dirty napkin that she probably got out from under the seat of her car. Yuck! What can be that important??


Well Liz, I just had to illustrate that I understand about the memory thing.

I try to carry little notepads in my car so that I can write down that item I saw at the department store or the bookstore that I want to consider buying later. Or things I remember as I’m in transit that I need from the grocery store but I won't remember when I get there. Or a reminder to make an appointment to get the tires rotated on the car.
These little notepads have a way of disappearing, getting taken into the house or the store and not returning themselves to the car. (As if they don't have feet) And then when I really need the pads of paper after a long walk when an entire journal entry wrote itself in my head all I can find is a wadded napkin that I must have missed last year when I cleaned the car.

I begin to have an inkling of what computer geeks mean when they say something about the computer being slow because it doesn’t have enough memory, only I’m thinking of me. I wonder how many gigs my brain has. (I probably just revealed ludite-like ignorance in that last bit)

Anyhow, to stop making a short story long, I sometimes jot down key words, thoughts, and ideas when I have them in order to jog my brain later when I have more than a napkin to write on, or for when I’m sitting in front of suzi q (my computer)

I do write things down, but I think I trust my memory to be what it was, instead of admitting it isn't what it used to be. And your description of scrambling for a napkin really made me laugh :) I wonder how many gigs my brain has, too! Too funny :)

Yes! I know that feeling and it's happy and sad all at the same time. Vemod is a good (swedish) word to describe it. I am the only one I know that reads the same books I do (duh!), but it's so exciting when you meet someone else who has the same feeling about a story - it's almost magical. This summer I had some very in depth discussions about Harry Potter with my 12 yr old niece, and it was soo fun.

Regarding what to write. I don't know. I write for myself mostly, although it is nice to see that people are reading. I have letters from my mom when I was a child, and I have always treasured those just for the glimpses of insight they provide me. Maybe my writing will do the same for my son - who knows?

Final thought. Your sentences are so well turned out Liz, you should be pleased. I like that you write with such feeling, that I really get a sense and a picture in my head of what you are telling me. It's always fun to come over here..

AngelaM (threecrowns)

Haha! Even though I was the queen of run-on sentences here?! :)