I can’t get things out of my head lately!

By Stacy Johnson

I participated in a wonderful exercise in my “Writing A Personal History” class at school. The freewrite began with these instructions:

Just write the word On at the top of a piece of paper, then add an abstract noun, then just write.
Don’t edit, don’t backspace, don’t think about things, just write.

So I did. I chose On Feeling Youthful – I just wrote and wrote about what that meant to me.

What a fun exercise! I learned so much about my true feelings and maybe better understand why I’m so involved with my kids sports, exercise, and hanging with my teenage kids. I want to feel youthful and it gets worse, the older I get.

Now, I can’t get the exercise out of my head. There are so many things to write about. This is a great exercise to try yourself. Write 300 words, write for 10 minutes, set your limit however you’d like. Now write.

I’ve come up with some things that I want to write about in the future. I can’t get this out of my head now, everytime I run into a situation, I want to sit down and write about it. Here’s how it goes:

I was at church yesterday and as I listened to the background noise from all the children around me, I wanted to go home and write On Reverence. Then, after the dinner that my husband and I so generously prepared before we left for church (so that it would be ready when we got home), my kids went upstairs and turned on the t.v. without cleaning up the kitchen. That made me want to write On Responsibility. This morning, after the kids left for school, and I had the house to myself, I got on facebook. Now, I want to write On Time Wasting :)


This has surely taken my mind off of the concern that sadly (and embarrassingly), keeps me up at night and that is this: I don't know what I'll wear on the Regis and Kelly show when they pick my little Anny as their 2009 Most Beautiful Baby. (jk, but not really:) I think my next topic will be On Reality. hee hee