Can You Come Back To It?

I just checked in my Hi/Lo books folder on this computer. I found many, many ideas for short books in it. The funny thing is, I knew exactly what I had thought about for each story as I read the one or two sentence description.

Got an idea? Write it down. You can save it in a folder on your computer, etc., or you can carry around/use a notebook to jot down writing ideas. Give each idea at least one full page. Just write the idea on the first line. Leave the rest of the page empty. Details for that idea will pop into your head, and you should put those details/ideas for it, on the page with the main idea for the article, book, poem . . . whatever the form of writing you want to do for that idea.

I just looked at an idea I wrote in 2019 . . . I remembered exactly what it was about and jotted down the ending paragraph. Now I need to write the rest of the hi/lo book.

Remember to read the types of writing you want to write. You won’t get ideas to copy, but you will see how authors construct their works.

Writing is like you’re building an airplane as you fly it. Send out submissions for publication, but meanwhile continue to hone your craft.

Ideas are like an artist’s sketches. You will know what you intended to write when you have time to sit down and develop the idea.

Effie

Recently I’ve had many memories about my grandmother. Her first name was Effie, and it was just by my mother’s refusal to name me that, that kept it from being my name. My mother loved her mother, but she had also been named Effie and did not like the name. Still, with that name and her knowledge came the woman who would mostly raise me.

My grandmother, Effie, was a professional seamstress. She taught me all the tricks she knew and many standard ways of sewing that she went by. I did not realize at the time, as I “tore out that zipper” one more time and tried again, what valuable lessons I was getting.

My grandmother was also a gardener. She always had a garden everywhere we lived, and I enjoyed being outside with her. In that garden I learned many lessons – some about gardening, some about life.

In the last couple weeks, I’ve had my son help me transplant a Dogwood tree. It popped up in the bush that is by my porch last fall. I left it there until recently and then had him transplant it to be beside my bedroom window. The roots on it were long, and although there was only one leaf on it, there were plenty of leaf buds on the end of the branches. I read yesterday that late fall is the best time to set out/transplant a Dogwood tree. I didn’t know that, but I think it said spring was the second best time. My grandmother would have known.

So as all the memories have recently popped up, I’ve thought about all the knowledge that woman, who had a sixth grade education, gave to me. What she knew, she knew well, and she loved to teach me.

She taught me the phonetic way of reading. Back in my childhood, the “See and Say” way was how reading was taught. When my grandmother realized I was not being taught letter sounds, she sat me down nightly and taught me herself. I would later get a Masters Degree in Language and Literacy and teach Reading to struggling readers myself. Been there, done that! I knew how to do it before I got my degree. But the degree enabled me to do it for a living.

She taught me many things, and to honor her memory, I am going to write a book with chapters about things she showed and taught me.

This is how I choose my writing topics. I call it my “muse”. I will be so attentive to a subject that it fills my head and must come out through my fingertips. I’m at that point now. Every day is a new memory and so it’s time to write.

Much of writing happens before the first word is put down by the writer. As we do mundane tasks . . . washing dishes, sweeping floors, our mind goes to our topics place, as I call it, and we mentally do our best “writing” while otherwise occupied. The next time you are doing something and a writing idea pops into your head, jot it down. Do it in a writing journal – a spiral notebook will work, and isn’t expensive.

I’m doing that here. I’ve come up with a working title. I’ve decided it will be a book, not an article or poem or short story. I have plenty of subject matter (Things my Grandmother Taught Me), and I’m ready to write. I’ve thought about this for at least the last six months. Memories popping up. Me knowing no one else will ever hear her wise words, if I don’t write them down.

Publishing? At MY age? It will be a self-publish on Amazon. I’ve done that 3 or 4 times already. Four? I wrote Bow Wow! Meow! and that’s the 27 page book of short poems I wrote about pets and wildlife. Some had been published in National Magazines. Some had not. That’s the book I am proud of. The other three need heavy editing. The one I wrote about teaching experiences was published as I recovered slowly from Covid. It was titled “More Than I Bargained For”. Teaching turned out to be just that. Then there was the one containing other poems. The Title eludes me. And there was one that was actually a Teacher’s Guide to Black History. I titled that one “Black History Raps” and have sold none. That was a title suggested to me since it contained poems (and other things) about famous people in Black History, and I used it. The Rappers have NO INTEREST in the book and the teachers don’t know the valuable contents. I plan to republish that one with the title “Teacher’s Guide to Black History”.

But I have to get these memories out of my head and the only way to do that is to write them down. So here goes!