Julia Mozingo Author

November has been a month for lots of new happenings. 

I learned many new things.  I learned how to maneuver around GoDaddy and set up my hosting account.  I took an online webpage class and learned basic HTML, how to read the code in a barebones webpage, sizing images, and a little about CSS.  I learned how to work the basics of WordPress.  I learned how to upgrade installed programs on my hosting account. 

Learning how to do these things as babysteps adds to my confidence and courage to try new things outside my comfort zone.  This also helps with writing, because an author learns these basic skills to help stretch the writing muscles, to keep the new work fresh, and to progress as a writer.

And I was on the go.  I traveled to the Arkansas Crater of Diamonds and visited the Oklahoma Runestone near Heavener.  I went to Oklahoma City and Wichita Falls, Texas.  I spent Thanksgiving with family and friends, shopped a little, watched the OU/OSU football game and parts of the Missouri/Kansas game, because it was on while I volunteered as Santa’s helper.  I toured the Christmas lights display at Ardmore, OK, where the lights are visible to motorists on I-35.

It’s so much fun to view the holiday season through the eyes of children, as if one is seeing the sights for the very first time — Christmas lights, Christmas displays, Christmas movies.  Remember those first times.  Recapture the joy, the awe, the excitement … the miracles of life and the always changing seasons. 

Give thanks for the little things, so many others have much less.  Find happiness and contentment in what you have.  Gratitude. 

Have you written today?  Think you have nothing to say or nothing to write?  Try making lists.  Select a topic.  List twenty-five items or more in five minutes or less.  How many lists can you create?

I decided to call this category “Travel and Adventure.”  The term would more aptly describe my writings in this area.  I don’t necessarily travel much, but I travel some.  In addition, I’ve been known to find adventure outside my own backdoor that spurs my muse to new wondering, new connections, and new ideas. 

A few places to which I’ve traveled — in no particular order — include Hawaii, New York City, Minneapolis, Dallas/Ft. Worth, the Ozarks, South Carolina, the Gulf of Mexico, Mexico’s Riviera Maya, the Caribbean, Canada, the southern United States, Niagra Falls — to name a few.

As I have time I post pictures and share the adventures.

For a writer, all your experiences can be considered as fodder for your writing.  Place your character in that location, create a situation, and see what happens — how the character acts and reacts, in respect to the character’s personality and traits.  You might find some writing surprises along the way.  Gotta go.  The dryer’s buzzing.

No.  I never had any idea I would be a writer.  I thought writers were a special breed.  I didn’t know ordinary people like myself could be a writer.  

Like many young girls, I had a locking diary — that small book with two pages per week; I think it was.  The narrow-lined paper had at most three to five lines per daily entry.  I’d write entries as soon as I received the diary — usually at Christmas — writing as small as I could to get as many words as possible in the minute space.  But by the end of January, or before, the diary would be long forgotten and misplaced.

Then when I was in sixth grade, everyday after lunch, while we worked on writing our spelling words ten times each and copying the definitions from the dictionary, my teacher would read us a chapter from a Nancy Drew mystery.  That’s when I fell in love with books.  I simply couldn’t get enough of Nancy Drew and her adventures.  I found myself so engrossed in the stories that I’d forget to do my spelling assignment.  Thank you, Mr. Engler, for introducing me to the wonderful world of books!

That summer my Mom took us to the library nearly every week.  I remember checking out nearly a dozen books each time.  I spent that summer reading and reading and reading.  By the time seventh grade started, I had an inkling to write a novel, as did my friend Karyn Cross.  I remember writing the whole first chapter, by hand, of course, and in my best handwriting.  Sometime that same year that, too, fell to the wayside.

In ninth-grade English, the teacher assigned the class to write a report about an “important” invention.  I don’t know why, but for some reason I decided to write from the viewpoint of a safety pin.  After I read my report aloud, the boy sitting across the aisle from me smirked and commented that the topic was supposed to be an “important” invention.  I remember the teacher championing me, telling the boy that for a girl, the safety pin was an “important” invention.  That teacher was the first to comment on my writing.  I believe her name was Mrs. Chastain.

I never thought about writing again for at least five years, or reading.  Then one day I decided to go to the library and check out an armload of books and began reading voraciously.  But it was another fifteen years before I ever thought about writing again.

The inner urgings grew stronger and stronger until one day I decided to put words to paper.  But by then, I’d committed to my college education.  So I assuaged the writing bug by reading about writing until I finished my Master’s degree. 

During those last few months, I heard of a local writing group.   It took a while for me to summon enough courage to attend that very first meeting, but I did.  The month following college graduation, I began writing, and within a year attended my very first writers’ conference where I met more real writers.  I joined distant groups and networked with them in monthly meetings.  Then I gathered my courage again, stepped out of my comfort zone, and entered the Internet community.

Wow!  The writing life was not so lonely anymore.  There were lots of others just like me on the writing path.  We shared common hopes, common dreams, and common disappointments, but we were also there to support each other along the way.

So that’s how I came to the writing life and began walking the writing path.  It wasn’t because I’d always known I’d be a writer.  I was led here by a Higher Creative Power filling me with irresistible inner urgings to take action.  So if I can be a writer, you can be a writer, too.  Follow your heart.

Writers are all always constantly busy.  We’re always short on time.  We’re always struggling for writing time and lamenting that we don’t get enough.  The key is to TAKE or MAKE writing time.  Make writing a priority.  Then let life flow around writing, rather than the writing flowing around everything else in life.  Try it.  You might like it.

Granted, it’s much easier said than done.  Been there, done that.  But … what might happen if you wrote for only fifteen minutes?  How long does it take you to be absorbed into the creatuve zone?  Might you become absorbed in your story, forget about not having time, and continue longer than the originally planned fifteen minutes?  Consider giving it a try.

I sometimes use a writing prompt to get started.  Do you use writing prompts?  How do you use writing prompts?  

Can you imagine your character in a situation and wonder how the character will react to get out of that situation, or a difficult situation?  Do you explore character emotions and wonder what happened for the character to feel the emotion?  Do you wonder what might happen if your character made this decision rather than that other decision? 

What is your favorite writing prompt?  Write about your thoughts on writing prompts or about what type of writing prompt you might use to jumpstart your daily writing stint.

Take time to write today … if only for a short while.

Welcome to my new Internet home.  The current economy has prompted me to step out of my comfort zone.  To stretch my confidence and risk failure.  I’ve jumped into the World Wide Web with my first website.

Tada!  This is it.

So far I’m paddling in the deep waters with more knowledgeable and more experienced persons.  Yet I’m managing to keep my head above water.  Even if sputtering at times.  By trying and trying, again and again, I’ve finally succeeded in setting up my own hosting account and WordPress on Windows with GoDaddy.  I’m not saying it was easy, but I did it!

I think positive and tell myself I can do this.  I will succeed.

Affirmations can and will help.  I have the intelligence to decipher the oceans of help documents — one sentence, one paragraph, one page at a time.

It’s all in the babysteps.  Babysteps will take me where I want to go.

I can do anything for fifteen minutes. 

Skills I’ve acquired in novel writing, I apply to other areas in life — positive thinking, affirmations, perseverance, persistence, determination.  They serve me well.

Thank you for stopping by.  Drop back whenever you can.  Observe my wanderings and wonderings, successes and failures, along the writing path — all learning experiences in life and fuel for writing.