Prompt for this week

I'm getting over a nasty virus and trying to think of food that appeals to me. Any time I am sick, I find that I become quite picky about what I want to eat.

Don't we all have certain foods that are comfort foods? Mine go back to childhood when Mother made me hot grits and butter, a very bland cereal we ate every day for breakfast with our eggs and biscuits. Most folks in the south ate grits years ago. I don't know about our modern busy world today.

   

But when I had an upset tummy, the  only thing I wanted was a small bowl of grits, salted and peppered, with a pat of Mother's real home made butter. 

Today, why not think about your favorite comfort food? My friend Mary Mike loves plain mashed potatoes when she feels blah. Once when I was in need of comfort, she brought a bowl of mashed potatoes to my house and I lapped them down as if they were manna from heaven. 

Today, my sister who is the best care giver for the sick, brought me macaroni and cheese. That was all I wanted -- a serving of macaroni and cheese. It perked me up and calmed me down at the same time. 

This is our prompt for this week - comfort food. 

Write a poem, memoir, story or essay about comfort food if this prompt strikes a chord.

I'd love to read what you write.

Words Are All We Have - Dana Wildsmith

Dana Wildsmith will be teaching Words are all we Have at Writers Circle around the Table on Saturday, April  25. Mark that date on your calendar now.

To see some of her work and see the way she thinks as a writer, visit her blog site:

http://www.danawildsmith.com/blog

River - what does it bring to mind?

In my classes I often give my students prompts or something in the way of a word or phrase to jog their minds so they think of a subject to  write about.  Over the years, I have found prompts to be excellent starters for poems or stories. 

I am going to be giving prompts on Writers Circle once or twice a week. If you like, take the prompt and see where it takes your thoughts, what images come to mind. Write a poem or prose piece. If you’d like, you can send it to me, gcbmountaingirl@gmail.com and I will read it. I might share it on this blog.

Today’s prompt is the word: river

River immediately sends me back to the days when I rode a big yellow school bus. To get to my fourth grade school, I had to cross the big, muddy Flint River. I can still feel my fear and excitement when I looked way down from the bridge and saw the swirling water moving under the bridge. My fear of bridges over rivers haunts me to this day.

When I think of river, I also remember the time my husband and I joined a  group of friends who took boats down the Flint River and across Lake Seminole, through the  locks and ended our trip at Applachicola Bay. The warm sun on our backs and the musty smells of the dank grasses and bushes along the banks created a perfect environment for total relaxation. 

A river of tears ran down her cheeks. There were song lyrics, “I cried a river over you.” The boxes on the conveyer belt moved like a fast flowing river, never stopping.

What do you see in your mind when you say or read the word – river?

Beginning in March, Glenda Beall teaches writing class at TCCC

Glenda  Beall teaches at TCCC in March

Title: Write Your Life Stories for Your Family or for Publishing

Location: Tri-County Community College, in Murphy, NC.
The dates:Tuesday afternoons, 6 - 8 p.m. March 24, 31 and April 7 and 14. 

I have taught adults to write stories about their lives for a number of years. The stories are often written for grandchildren or other family because the writer wants to leave a legacy of what life was like before cell phones, before computers and video games, before families were too busy and before they were scattered all over the country and around the world. The writer might want to tell about his family history for generations before him. 

Each of us has a unique story, and in this class the student will learn

• where to begin
• how to begin
• how to organize your work
• what to write and what not to write
• how to write so that your audience will want to read your stories

Each student will have several stories completed and written by the end of the course in an entertaining and interesting form. Each student will carry home a number of tools he/she can use in the future. If you have studied  with me in the past, you will not be bored. We will have new exercises and new topics to explore.

What the New Year Brings

January 1, 2015

This year has begun with a brighter day than most we’ve had in December. The sun is shining and that makes me smile.

The first day of a new year is like opening a new writing journal for me. I have a clean slate on which to begin. It is mine to do what I will every day, make it mundane or exciting. On my Gratitude List today, number one is: I am here in this lovely place which inspires me to write and to share with other writers. 

Last May, as I started up my stairs, I had a sudden muscle strain in my left hip, fell and for two months, as I visited one doctor and another, I worried that I might have to stop holding classes in my studio, Writers Circle around the Table. I could not walk up and down stairs for three months without extreme pain. Prescription drugs became a way of life for me. Depression set in as I visualized myself moving to be near family, leaving this place I love so much.

I am not a city girl. The first time I lived in town, I shared an apartment with two girls after college. The girls were great, but I missed my privacy and the open green space of my rural home.  When my husband and I married we lived in a furnished apartment for less than a year. Our poodle, Brandy, soon made it obvious that he was not a city dog. He chewed everything in the place and shredded the sofa cushions. We had to move to a place with a yard.

That was when we claimed our five acres of my father’s farm. My husband delighted in living in the woods and Brandy spent all day outside. 

For thirty years we lived there and when we moved to the mountains of North Carolina, we found a house surrounded by trees, very private but only five miles from our small town. After my husband died, I remodeled my downstairs for my studio. Already, I have excellent instructors lined up to teach classes in 2015. (see Schedule page)

Thankfully, the stairs hold no challenge for me now. With the help of my orthopedic massage therapist and an acupuncturist who introduced me to Pete Egoscue’s book, Pain Free, A Revolutionary Method for Stopping Chronic Pain, the pain in my hip is gone. I do one simple exercise every day. It is called Static Back. The book has many of these e-cises and I also do many of them, but Static Back is the one that fixed my hip problem. 

So on my Gratitude List today are two very wonderful young men, Jay Gibson and Chris Bassett, and a young woman massage therapist, April Stewart. With massage, acupuncture, and the dedication of these therapists, I feel better than I have in a long, long time. Seldom do I need any pain medicine, and when I do, it is over the counter, not prescription. 

We have to manage our own health, learn all we can about our problems, and follow our gut instincts. I was told I needed to see a back surgeon. I was told that all of us live with pain and I could expect to deal with it the rest of my life. I would not accept that. 

When Chris Bassett told me I didn't have to live in pain. I could work on my posture, aligning my body by lying on the floor twenty minutes a day with my legs on a chair, I wanted to cry with joy. He took time to show me how I walked, what I was doing that aggravated my muscular problems, and gave me the hope I needed to go to work on myself. Simple stretches every day will keep our muscles from atrophying. The acupuncture helped with the pain, as did the massage therapy, but I had to continue treatment on myself so that I was not re-injuring myself. 

Yes, this New Year has dawned bright and beautiful and full of prospects for challenges and successes.

I hope all of you, my readers, will have much to be thankful for in 2015, and I hope you will start your own gratitude journal today. Write five things each day for which you are thankful. This stimulates the positive in your life instead of the negative. 

I might write “I am thankful for the butterfly flitting around on my flowers.” I might also write, “I am grateful today for the good test result for my friend.”  This is your journal and no one needs to see it. 

Although we hear all the horrible things on the news that make us feel that our world is coming apart, our words, deeds, and ideas can help to make a better world. They really do matter.

Shelby Dean Stephenson - new Poet Laureate of NC

News in the literary world of North Carolina

Shelby Dean Stephenson has been selected the new Poet Laureate of North Carolina and will be installed in February, 2015.

Read more here.

Why Count our rejections?

I am always surprised when I read that a writer knows exactly how many rejections he has received. I wonder why one would want to rub salt in the wound that occurs when the rejections arrive. I make note that the journal has rejected my work, and then put the info away in my files. I have two files in the drawer. One has all my acceptances and the other has rejections. Those that come now by email get filed in my documents. I have no idea how many times my work has been rejected.

Once a poem has been turned down a couple of times, I revise it and send it out again to different publications.  I have an idea of the number of  publications I have because I list them on my blog, but I have never counted them to make me feel good or bad. If I counted all the rejections , I am sure I’d be unpleasantly surprised. Since I have no idea of their number, I never think about it.

Part of my approach to life is making sure I don’t poke sticks in my eyes anymore. Why torture myself when it is unnecessary and does no one any good? Why would I lash myself with a big whip?

Instead of thinking of the negative, I glory in my acceptances when they come and share them with friends that I know care about me. I think it is best to celebrate our greatness every chance we get.

Classes for 2015

We are happy to have Paula Canup, former English teacher, writer and journalist, join our faculty in 2015. She will teach a workshop in March.  The date and time will be announced later.

We can always use a brush up on our basic skills and new writers often have forgotten those details of grammar that we learn in high school and college. I see many problems with new students such as when to use ellipses, where to place quotation marks in dialogue, what is an em dash and where to use it. How often can we use an exclamation point or when should we use it?

Put it on your calendar now to sign up for Paula’s class at Writers Circle next March.

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Glenda  Beall teaches at TCCC in March

I will be teaching in March at Tri-County Community College. The dates are: March 24, 31 and April 7 and 14. Time for all classes is 6 p.m. until 8 p.m. The title of the class is Write Your Life Stories for Your Family or for Publishing.

I have taught adults to write stories about their lives for a number of years. The stories are often written for grandchildren or other family because the writer wants to leave a legacy of what life was like before cell phones, before computers and video games, before families were too busy and before they were scattered all over the country and around the world. 

Each of us has a unique story, and in this class you learn

• where to begin
• how to begin
• how to organize your work
• what to write and what not to write
• how to write so that your audience will want to read your stories

Each student will have several stories completed and written by the end of the course in an entertaining and interesting form. Each student will carry home a number of tools he/she can use in the future. 

Classes for 2015

We are happy to have Paula Canup, former English teacher, writer and journalist, join our faculty in 2015. She will teach a workshop in March.  The date and time will be announced later.

We can always use a brush up on our basic skills and new writers often have forgotten those details of grammar that we learn in high school and college. I see many problems with new students such as when to use ellipses, where to place quotation marks in dialogue, what is an em dash and where to use it. How often can we use an exclamation point or when should we use it?

Put it on your calendar now to sign up for Paula’s class at Writers Circle next March.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Glenda  Beall teaches at TCCC in March

I will be teaching in March at Tri-County Community College. The dates are: March 24, 31 and April 7 and 14. Time for all classes is 6 p.m. until 8 p.m. The title of the class is Write Your Life Stories for Your Family or for Publishing.

I have taught adults to write stories about their lives for a number of years. The stories are often written for grandchildren or other family because the writer wants to leave a legacy of what life was like before cell phones, before computers and video games, before families were too busy and before they were scattered all over the country and around the world. 

Each of us has a unique story, and in this class you learn

• where to begin
• how to begin
• how to organize your work
• what to write and what not to write
• how to write so that your audience will want to read your stories

Each student will have several stories completed and written by the end of the course in an entertaining and interesting form. Each student will carry home a number of tools he/she can use in the future. 

Michael Diebert will be teaching at Writers Circle in 2015. Time and date to be announced.

Michael with students at Writers Circle