What Does It Take To Be A Writer?

That is a question I heard someone ask my cousin who is a writer. He said first you have to have passion. I was shocked, I thought he was going to say you have to go to school and take classes for learning to write.

So I did a research myself on the internet and that question is what I typed into the address bar. Sure enough, several sites came up and said you have to have passion. One website said that you need passion, practice and study. This makes a lot of sense to me, especially since I do have the passion. Just because I do have that passion doesn't mean I am a writer or even good at writing anything. I need to practice, practice makes progress. I have to study, I have to study really hard because I struggle greatly with punctuation especially, and then describing and showing the story not telling it. I have hope, I am going to practice and study very hard. I really want to write and I'd love to write for a living.

I liked this website (the one below) it had some good things to say I thought.


http://www.betterstorytelling.net/writingtools/whatdoesittake.html

Making a New Blog

I have been reading up on blog writing. I want to do another blog when school is out. I'm not sure just yet what topic or subject I want to blog about but, I enjoy blogging a lot and want to continue blogging.

There are so many websites on blogging. One that I like is this one: 
http://www.writersdigest.com/online-editor/the-12-dos-and-donts-of-writing-a-blog
It's a helpful site for the dos and don'ts of blog writing. Another website I love to go to is blogging for dummies.com In fact all of the "for dummies" books and websites are great in my opinion. They make everything easier to understand I think.

One of the tips I really like is to be yourself and to be relatable. I like being able to be myself and I would like others to be able to relate to me and me to them.

I am leaning towards blogging about my family and friends and putting pictures and videos of all of us on it. 

Here are some of the pictures of my family:

My daughter, Karen and Wyatt her youngest (5)

My grandson, my daughter's son Dylan (13)

My oldest granddaughter Lauryn (my daughter's daughter) (17) and me

My daughter Karen (36) and her daughter Trinity (10)

My son Ken (35)

My son Keith (32) and his daughter

My son Kurtis (31) and his wife Tarah

My son Bo (14), his friend Liz and 2 of my grand children, Maycen (10) and Kaylen (7)

5 of my grand children: Riley, Landon, Maycen, Kaylah and Kaylen

Sloopy my baby that I rescued she was
ten days old here, aprox. she is now about 12 weeks old

Me: Teresa at 54 years old

Happy Endings

Today I turned a real situation that happened in my life into a fictional story. It turned out pretty good too I think. I did a few twists and I tweaked the ending to make it more interesting. The real ending is not such a happy one and I wanted it to have a happy ending. It was fun, I could create what I wanted my life to be; even if just in my story.

Writing this story that I did made me realize that I can try and take my real everyday life and turn it into a happy ending. I just need to stay away from those who create crazy drama. I need to stay away from people who are downers and try to suck me into their negativism. I'm going to try harder to be aware of those kind of friends, which really aren't true friends in the first place. My happiness is really my responsibility. I'm not allowing anyone to put anymore of their junk on my already full plate.     

A friend of mine once asked me why I only watch movies and read books that are romantic and funny; that have happy endings. I told her that life is so full of hard times; I want to watch things that make me feel good, that make me laugh; it's like an escape to me. If I know that a story has a sad ending, I'm not going to go watch it or read it. Is there something wrong with wanting a happy ending?

Below is a picture of happy to me. This is my second child Ken (35 yrs. old), with his wife Natalie (32 yrs. old), and their three children Landon (7 yrs. old) on the left, Riley (10 yrs. old) in the middle and Kaylah (5 yrs. old) on the right. 

They found out after their first child (Riley) was a few years old that he had Fragile X Syndrome. Natalie is a carrier of it but, she didn't know.  

They decided that they were going to have no more children. But she was already pregnant with Landon, they were scared but they knew that they would be OK if he had it too. (He is a carrier of FXS, but does not have it). Before she could get her tubes tied she ended up getting pregnant again. Natalie was on birth control pills but she got sick from a bee sting and the pill stopped working so, they ended up with Kaylah (she is also a carrier of FXS but doesn't have it). I am so happy that they are all healthy and happy. Riley also has autism, which comes with FXS, but he's doing great.

Short Story Writng....Sounds easier but, it's not!

I am finding out how much harder it is to write short stories verses longer ones. I know that there's a reason behind it. I read somewhere that the limited space of short stories requires the writer to stick to what must be included and leave the rest out. Also mastering storytelling in a short form can help you see your novel in a different light. I agree with all of that but, I'm finding it's real hard for me to take a long story and make it short. I have to leave out so much of the details. I admire anyone who can write well, especially short story writers now. 

I long and look forward to the day that I am good at writing anything real well. Especially being descriptive. When I read a novel or, anything for that matter it seems so easy. But for me it is not easy being descriptive,not at all. I think it's a true art to be able to show a story through description and allowing the reader to become so engaged that, they don't want to put the book down. 

One thing I've realized about myself lately is, I would rather read a short story, one that moves at a fast pace. I think life is so fast paced that a lot of us don't want or have the time to read anything that's too long. I've noticed that when someone post a short story on Facebook, I'll take the time to read it but, I'll skip the ones that are too long. Even videos are getting shorter, vines for example. And I find myself skipping over the video's that are more than a minute and watch the short ones. I think it's time to stop and smell the roses; as the saying goes. I've decided to tell myself to slow down, life's too short to rush through it. 

Learning to Write

About six weeks into school and I'm finding that I really suck at English (LOL). Not speaking it but, writing it. Commas, semicolons, periods, sentences, etc.; all of that. I am shocked that I know so much less about writing than I thought I knew. I knew it wouldn't be a breeze but, I did think it would be much less painful than it is. Now it's starting to leave me feeling a whole lot of doubt about whether or not I could actually write a novel. The above picture is how I feel today. :)

I think maybe I should go back and take English 101. (Actually I am going to, I've made up my mind.) Maybe if I took this class I would understand so much more than I do about making sentences. Right now every time I write, even this blog, I wonder if every comma is out of place. I use commas the way I do because that's kinda how I talk I think. When I go back over what I've wrote it always feels right to me. I feel as though I'm walking in the dark and stumbling over objects that I didn't know were in my way now.

I love to write but I want to be good at it. I love to tell stories of my life and stories of my family. Not just the awful parts but also the good parts. I can honestly say though, there aren't a lot of happy times growing up, but there are a few and those are like precious jewels to me. So I will trudge along (LOL) that's how it feels right now. I will not stop learning and I will not stop trying to get better with every sentence that I write. I thank God for the teachers I have because they are real good at their job and really help guide me.

This is my goal, to write like this!