Warm Up Exercise

Briefly looking through long forgotten drafts, I came across the phrase, "my head was crowded". ...My head is almost always crowded. Earlier today I was thinking, "I think too much." As the various layers that make me me, the few times when I'm not thinking I'm in one stage of exhaustion or another.

I've been trying to find some focus in areas of life lately, and aside from visiting calm.com with the consistency of the dabbler that I am, the only way I know how to gain focus is to employ focus. Soo helpful.

Anyway, with needing focus in mind and thinking about my writing goals, I thought I'd drop in for a little writing warm up, a brain/focus exercise, a social exercise, a patience exercise perhaps.

So, I'm going to find a writing prompt online and go for, say 150-200 words. Just to see what happens.

...... First choice was ...boring. Second choice was personal. Great.
But I'm not backing down. Why not go for it?

"Where do you go when you want to get away from the pressures of life, family, work, etc? Write about that place." (found at Creative Writing Prompts)

Sometimes I joke that books are my tardis. Okay, that’s only happened twice. Once? Ah well, it’s kinda true. When I’m run down and ready to vanish from this world for even just ten minutes, a book of my choosing is one of the first things I’ll want to pick up. TV stories and movies are great, and sometimes I’ll pick that because it’s easier or because I can share the experience with another. But books, ah the beauty of immersion in a book. I get involved when I watch a show, but I think I get more involved when reading. I love the format, the expression of the point of view. I want to smell what the hero smells. I want to know what the girl dressed as a boy is thinking without guessing. I want to be a part of long-established relationships as soon as I turn the page. I want to travel to the fantasy world and imagine the ground beneath my feet. I wonder what I would do in the world, in the story, in the friendships.

Maybe I'll do this warm up again sometime. Maybe that time I'll write something fiction.

In the meantime, onward with life and onward with story!

My Box

I live in a box. Like one that can store treasures or collect unwanted trinkets that don't ever get thrown out. My room is a box. Like a storage unit, it can be organized or chaotic. Right now my room is like a box being sorted. Only the treasures will remain, leaving empty space so they will be visible. Some have been hidden for so long that they're hardly treasures anymore. Yet once found, remembered, I have a hard time parting with them.

But what needs more space in the box of my room? Things? Or me?

I feel most alive, perhaps most protected, when I am not confined. It's why I love a wide open sky, a low horizon, a far view. Somehow I have to create that within a confined space, and so more things must go to make room for my long limbs and brave imagination to stretch.

My box, my room, is very boring, until I add the touch of me, things that make my heart leap with joy, things that remind me of good times and the love I have from others, things that let me ponder. Snapshots of the best moments in my favorite movie. A rose from my best friend, given three Valentine's ago, hanging in the window all this time. My college graduation cap with the Tangled sun that my sister-in-law painted on top. My framed print of a cowboy riding at sunset. My bridesmaid bouquet from my brother's wedding.

I live in a box. But soon, the edges of the box will fade and the treasures will take the spotlight.

Soon, my box will be as open space.

Linking up with The RunaMuck's #concretewords prompt.