Elizabeth Zaske

Category: Writing

  • Writer’s Block

    Haven’t written anything in a long time.  I’m having trouble forming coherent sentences.

    The page is too big to fill right now.
    The page is too big to fill right now.

    I can’t even fill a full page in my notebook.  I start and then realize most of what I wrote is horrible.  So I stop for a while and try to come back to it.

    I have a few events coming up in which I hope to get my writing mojo back.

    The first is Thursday, and is an event at the University of Minnesota, Morris library.  Publishing anyone?  I hope to find the event informative and useful to what I hope to accomplish.

    The next event is going to Mary’s house!  Friday we stay there and Saturday we read her new play.  I am so looking forward to the reading and a good visit!  Usually just an hour with Mary puts me right back to where I should be with my writing.  And that happens from her full enthusiasm toward the arts in general and writing in particular.  Thank you Mary!

    So hopefully I’ll be back at it again soon.

  • Back at it

    So, here we are, almost two months after beginning this blog and I’ve already forgotten it.  Way to go, me!

    Actually, that’s not quite what happened, but I guess it all comes down to the same thing: I haven’t updated my little corner of the web for a long time.  I have had some ideas and actually wrote them out, but I never posted them.  Instead, I let them sit while I thought it over.  Now they’re in the recycle pile, ready to go out.  I won’t publish them.  Why not?  Because they really weren’t the type of writing I want to represent me.  They were written in a really snarky tone.  That was bad enough, but then they were also profanity laden. That’s not really who I am.  At times, yes, but not always.  And while I will have some sarcastic comments here, I really don’t want to make entire posts that way.  The more I thought about them, the less I liked them. I want everyone to be comfortable reading my words (or at least a good majority).  The sarcasm and profanity are just not needed.

    So what about my second sentence up there?  It’s one sentence, and it’s directed inward, and not at anyone else.  I’m fine with that.  So, after a lot of thought about those posts, out of my notebook they came and straight into the recycling bag they went.  I write out everything with pencil and paper because that is part of the process for me.

    Anyway, besides those posts that are now gone, I have just a few more details to add to this site.

    I need a picture of myself and an “about me” section.  Neither of those things should be difficult, but I hate cameras when I am the subject of the picture, and I hate trying to define who I am.  So, I procrastinate.  I have asked for help on the “about me” section, but my questions are usually answer with blank looks and generic answers of, “Well, you’re you,” or, “I got nothing.  Sorry, I can’t help.”

    I have decided to put more energy and time into my writing now that the busy holiday time is over.  I have a few ideas simmering for this blog, some research to do for a short story, and a lot of work to get done on a longer fiction piece.  My goal is to take time to write every day in some form and post here at least twice a week if not more often.

    So, that said, here’s to keeping up and getting into a writing schedule!

  • Word List

    I do a lot of random reading at any given time.  Internet articles (good sources only!), children’s books, banned books, science fiction, fantasy, non-fiction.  You name a particular genre, I’ve probably read something from it.  Lately, my reading has turned to essays.  I’ve read essays by A.A. Milne, Zora Neal Hurston, E.B. White, D.H. Lawrence, and Ernest Hemingway among many others.

    My goal in reading so many essays is to figure out what exactly an essay is.  I’m no nearer to that goal than when I started.  Indeed, I think I’m even further from that goal now.  However, as I read I come across words that require more investigation and/or explanation.  So, I keep a note card and pencil handy to write down the words I would like to look up.  At this moment I have 21 words on my list.

    My favorite word to say is snickersnee.  It’s fun.  It sounds like something to laugh about.  And it was, until I looked up the definition on Dictionary.com: A knife, especially one used as a weapon.

    There is really no humor there.

    Another word I found without a reference in my vocabulary was buncombe.  So I dutifully looked it up.  I actually do have buncombe in my vocabulary!  Just not spelled that way.  I’m used to seeing it as “bunkum” and it means nonsense.  I don’t see it as nonsense when spelled buncombe.  There should be something to buncombe instead of nonsense! It looks important.  But by definition it is not.

    Boobery made me snicker, I will admit.  It has the word “boob” in it, and I have a pre-adolescent mind sometimes.  I’m not entirely sure how I feel about a slang word for breasts (typically a feminine attribute) being in a word that means stupidity, but I will go with the etymology that places boob’s emergence (another snicker)somewhere between 1590 and 1600, and was meant as a stupid fool. The usage as a term for breasts came later.

    The last word on my list that interests me is calaboose.  It’s just a slang word for jail.  It’s fun to say, though, so I’m going to work it into every day conversation more often.

    “Oh, did you hear about Frank? Yah, he is in the calaboose for stealing donuts from Casey’s!”

    And now I have to go off and read more and in the process find more fun words.  I may even post some of the more fun/interesting ones here.

     

  • New Direction

    Start writing, no matter about what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on. You can sit and look at a page for a long time and nothing will happen. Start writing and it will.  

    –Louis L’Amour in Education of a Wandering Man

    I’ve been rather tentative about writing again. I am feeling very enthusiastic about this new venture (freelancing), even if it starts out slowly. All the same, there is anxiety.  What if no one is willing to read my work? What if I can’t get a paying job? What if I can’t find something to write about? What if I completely fail? What if I can’t find time to write because I have a child at home? What if? What if?
    So the questions go. Then, as I was reading Education of a Wandering Man by Louis L’Amour, I found the above quote. And something clicked. I did not start immediately. I still gave in to the fears and general anxiety. I found anything I could to not start again. Instead of writing, I cleaned off my desk (who can write at a cluttered desk?) and found music to play in the background (everyone needs working music, right?). And even yet, I kept coming back to the quote. I read it and reread it and pondered it.

    Finally, I talked over this new idea with Matt, who is incredibly supportive and yet not afraid to tell me when I’m about to do something stupid. He was for it. And so, no other obstacles in my way, with my clean desk and music playing, I have a pencil in hand and a notebook in front of me. I’m writing.  And I’m calm now that I’ve begun. I know that even if this new direction isn’t right for me, at least I will have tried.