Please welcome, Naomi Nakashima, our WOW! Women On Writing guest today. She is the author of Write Out Loud, a way to gain enough confidence in our writing to enable us to write a book. She has also written us a wonderful guest post on this same subject, ways to get over our writing fears, complete with some amazing writing prompts. Unleashing Your Inner Wordsmith: Unconventional Writing Hacks and Tips That Actually Work by Naomi Nakashima Writing a book is equal parts exciting and exhausting, creative and challenging. When the words are flowing, we live on cloud 9. But when the words stop, or when we start struggling to find the time to write, or feeling stuck in our creative process, writing a book becomes a source of anxiety and self-doubt. When you need that extra boost of inspiration to get you started, writing hacks and tips can help. These unconventional approaches can help you get past writer's block, ignite your creativity, and ultimately write the novel that’s … [Read more...]
I’m not quite ready for the jazz scene yet
Paul playing the piano at home The last night of our trip to Portland we all decided to go to Tony Starlight's http://www.tonystarlight.com to listen to jazz. My brother-in-law Tom is heavily involved with the jazz scene in Portland and is the president of the board of the 2011 Portland Jazz Festival. A group of three young men from Switzerland, playing piano, bass, and, drums, performed that night. Well I'm not sure if attending that show was the wisest decision for me. I hadn't purposely gone to hear jazz since my son Paul died almost twelve years ago, and once there and listening to the music, all I could do was compare that group to many similar trios Paul used to play all young men playing avant-garde tunes. However, this music was hard to listen to quite discordant in a lot of parts, and they played nothing recognizable. Though Tom compared Paul's music to theirs, I feel that Paul's music was much more melodic. He played his riffs on the high notes; they played loud … [Read more...]
Happy Birthday, Dad
Dad with Paul, 1972 Today would be my dad's birthday. He died in 1975 at the age of seventy-two after a year and half battle with cancer of the bile duct system. Who knows where that came from? He always lived very healthy. He was trim, he was an early advocate of health foods and one of the first health food gurus Gaylord Hauser, he didn't smoke, and drank only moderately. I always worried a heart attack would take him since he had one at age fifty-seven, probably caused by stress. Perhaps stress was what caused his cancer. He sure had his share of it from my mother and from major business setbacks toward the end of his life. He was a quiet guy and kept most of his thoughts and feelings inside. That could have caused his cancer as well. I've heard if we let emotions out it's better for our health. What I most admire him for was his sense of family he always protected us and encouraged us. He also was creative. He played the violin as a youngster, and he made sure my siblings … [Read more...]
