By Nellie Curtiss …
Sometimes looking at the blank screen elicits little ideas or none at all. Then sometimes watching Dr. Phil, my brain explodes with ideas and ways to share or reach others.
Mostly, ideas for writing come to me when I flip open the laptop and type. I used to explain to students that one way to get your thoughts out is to freewrite. Freewriting means writing without editing and allowing typos, inadequate word choices, and even silly thoughts to register. Editing only comes when all the ideas are down in writing.
Another oft taught method is to brainstorm on a sheet of paper, or on the screen. Still another is to take some ideas formed on the brainstorm and circle or cluster ideas: like with likes, or similar topics connected with arrows.
Stephen King, author of Cujo, Christine, 1408, Carrie and other horror-science fiction says: “Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.”
Margaret Atwood, author of The Handmaid’s Tale, Alias Grace, and The Blind Assassin has said about writing: “If I waited for perfection, I would never write a word.”
Benjamin Franklin, Founding Father who drafted the Declaration of Independence and invented the Franklin Stove, the lightening rod, and bifocals said: “Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.”
Paulo Coelho, author of the Alchemist, says: “Tears are words that need to be written.”
Ayn Rand, author of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, says: “Words are a lens to focus one’s mind.”
Lady Gaga, American song writer, musician and actor, says: “When you make music or write or create, it’s really your job to have mind-blowing, irresponsible, condomless sex with whatever idea it is you’re writing about at the time.”
Gabriel Garcia Marquez, author of Love in the Time of Cholera, and the short story A Very Old Man with Enormous White Wings, has said: When I sit down to write, which is the essential moment in my life, I am completely alone. Whenever I write a book, I accumulate a lot of documentation. That background material is the most intimate part of my private life. It’s a little embarrassing – like being seen in your underwear It’s like the way magicians never tell others how they make a dove come out of a hat.”
Writer’s Digest shared some quotes from Toni Morrison, author of Beloved, Song of Solomon and The Bluest Eye: “If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else.”
All of these writers have touched my writing and helped me find purpose in writing. I am not paid as a columnist nor am I a reporter with the Valley Courier,though I was years back and spent several years as a stringer for the paper when Ruth Heide, Editor was still there. I started writing columns with the Valley Courier in 1999 when Keith Cerny first hired me.
Each week, my writing’s purpose is to help others. Sometimes that appears as information, other times, as a story, still other times it is sharing comedy, composure, or compassion. My weekly hope is that the column has moved you, the reader, to pause and consider what hope might mean, what loving others might mean, or how giving back to others might make your day and empower you.
— Nelda Curtiss is a retired college educator and long-time local columnist. Reach her at columnsbynellie.com or email her at columnsbynellie@gmail.com
Cutline for picture: Colored pencil sketch is by Nellie Curtiss entitled: What to write?
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