Well, it's Tuesday and school is out for snow. As always I can't wait to see what Mother Earth has done while we've been asleep to call for such an occasion. To the window I crept to take a peek and...
Nothing. No snow.
Got to love east coast living.
The storm is coming and supposed to drop 4-6 inches. As someone who used to walk to school - no, not uphill both ways - but still, WALK to school carrying my backpack and saxophone in 1-3 feet of snow in Colorado when I was younger, you can see why this is funny to me.
I mean really. This side of the country - Mid Atlantic region and south - shuts down for snow. Even just an inch. They even close the malls around here! When it's ice, I can see why they shut everything down. But snow? The white fluffy fun stuff?
I remember the first snowfall I spent here. I was driving my parents full-size van. Not minivan, mind you. A full-size Econoline Ford 350. Love of my life at the time. It was a beast.
Driving up the highway toward Baltimore I saw it. My first snowflake since leaving Colorado. My family had been stationed overseas in Italy for 3 years and it had flurried one day while we were there, but it never snowed. So I was thirsty for the white stuff. And when I saw that first big white fluffy snowflake fly toward me as I zoomed down the darkened highway at night, I went HAPPY! aka, berserk in a good way ;)
And then more came. And more! A real life snowfall! I sang my Lia Is Happy Again song and continued on down the road to Baltimore with all the other fellow happy it's snowing people of this new interesting State of Maryland. Or so they had been on the road. One by one, they all pulled off to the side of the highway. Blinkers going mad, skid marks as if the end of the world had come. Cruse on through the snow I did - it was only flaking, not accumulating, not even sticking to the concrete. Just fluffy white against my headlights in the dark.
But these Marylanders. They were scattered to the sides of the road to wait out the "storm".
But I digress...
You see what I just did there? I took an idea an spilled it all out.
I just WROTE whatever came to mind.
Practice. That's all we writers need to do to be Writers. WRITE!
And that's the Writing Tip for this Tuesday... JUST WRITE. You'll see that advice from published authors over and over again. Stephen King. Anne Rice. Carolyn R Parsons. Sharon Short. Gale Deitch. They all say it as their biggest advice to aspiring authors.
WRITE!
And so, do it. Easy as pie. That's why I started my blog back in 2008. As a means to write every day. The perfect practice to get into in order to prepare myself with the ultimate challenge of writing a novel.
And it worked.
Just like running, writing is a drug. The more you do it, the more you WANT to do it. And the more you want to do it, the more you will crave it. Dream about it. Talk about it. Soon, you'll become a writer all because you just wrote.
Pretty cool, huh? ;)
Well, I'm glad for the Marylander's fear of the fluffy white stuff. Schools are closed and I get a whole day to spend with my kiddos. Hopefully by noon we'll be playing in the snow :)
Just have to find their snow boots first. Didn't snow last year (growl) so I think I put them in the attic... my kid's will be thrilled with that search and rescue adventure. They love the attic...
;)
