Blog #7 Samara: Using my senses

When we were asked to write using all of our senses a poem that I wrote in Advanced Poetry two semesters ago came to mind. I have a difficult time being as descriptive in my fiction as I do in my poetry. For some reason it is easier for me descriptive when I know I don't have dialogue to rely on.

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Winter Burial
(For Grandma Ruth)


It is the kind of cold that
makes your teeth chatter and your bones ache.
Ground glistening with fresh snow.
The sun remains hidden behind
ominous clouds threatening to dump
a fresh load of white powder.

The plot before us ripped open by large mechanical teeth,
only after heaters thaw the frozen Chicago ground.
The hole, a brown so dark it looks almost black
against the stark white landscape.
Six feet deep.

Mourners huddle together against the biting wind,
not wanting to mix physical pain with emotional.
The casket sits off to the side of the plot,
not ready to be placed in the abyss.

Men dressed in warm down coats, with gloved hands turn a crank.
The casket begins its journey,
back to the earth from where it came.

The rabbi begins the Kaddish
the prayer for the dead.

And the words start to flow from our lips.

Blog Post # 7: Ray Atkins has a Case of the Sweetwater Blues

My current work in progress, Sweetwater Blues, is a story about decisions and consequences.  It is a novel that explores how a life can change in the time it takes to flip a coin or blink an eye. The excerpt that follows deals with the recollections of a young man who, along with his lifelong friend, found out just how quickly lives could alter course.

Rodney and Palmer were deep into their celebration when they decided that the night was still young enough for another journey to the beer joint. It was a decision that changed the world. Many times during the ensuing years, Palmer Cray marveled that he was able to remember those moments at the cemetery so well, considering that he didn’t recollect much at all from the time period right after. But the memories were there, etched into his neurons just as surely as if they were carved onto the walls of his cell. All he had to do was close his eyes, and it all came back to him, unbidden and unwanted, as welcome as a hurricane. The stars were like Christmas lights strung against a backdrop of black velvet, sparkling beacons forever just out of his reach. The only cloud in the entire sky had wrapped itself around the moon like a cape against the chill of the evening. It was white and billowy, like chiffon. A wispy ground fog slithered to and fro among the white tombstones like a lazy snake easing from one grave to another in search of a mouse. Fireflies danced.

It wasn’t just visual images that came to him. He could inhale the scents of summer as they lingered on the gentle breeze, the thick, sugary perfume of the fat honeysuckle vines as they hung from the branches overhead, the cloying sweetness of the gardenias, and the overripe richness of the magnolias.  The crickets and the tree frogs croaked and skreeked back and forth as they skirmished for ascendency. From a great distance came a long, mournful note as a freight train approached a marked crossing. It was a slow moment in time, a rare glimpse of perfection, a calm before the gale descended and the tides surged. They had all the days of the world before them. Their lives were each an unblemished canvas, and they could paint just about whatever they wished.

Blog #7 Toni Michael

This scene is part of a short story I wrote in Creative Writing. Reading the rape scenes in The Prince of Tides and Lime Tree Can't Bear Orange, I was reminded of this scene. It saddens me how tragic the act of rape is and how common it is.

Before she even realized it, Rodrigo, his body pulsating with vitality, slithered beside her.
Roughly, he whispered in her ear as he always did, “If you love me you will never say anything about this.”
“Please, Rodrigo,” she whimpered, “Leave me alone.”
“You know that you don’t want that.” He said.
He was stroking her jet black hair and gently telling her to be quiet. Staring up at the ceiling Elena counted the thin unpainted boards that stretched from one side of the room to the other side of the room. It was her ritual as he pulled up her dress and wrestled her panties down, one, two three… ten…twenty…fifty. Cutting her open he began to penetrate her. She could feel the familiar splitting. The room was stifling hot and the sweat was pouring off his body making him slick as he moved up and down. She could feel his skin smacking hers with every pulse of his limbs on her body. She could feel the springs on her back as her body was pushed down into the mattress. She could taste the saltiness of his hand covering her mouth. The more excited he became the harder it was for her to breathe. The counting stopped.She let her mind wander. It detached like one of the magical floating balloons she had seen in the drug store. Floating high into the air, she could see everything: The cows chewing grass in the fields, the Columbus Drive Bridge where she would go and watch the draw bridge open wide for the boats to pass through, the lapping edges of the river where she would go and bathe. He rolled off her, pulled up his pants and walked out of the room without looking at her. She could feel the warm white liquid drip out of her body. Slowly, she pulled up her panties and walked outside.

Blog #7 Heather Cook--Fletcher's Creek

This is an excerpt from one of my short stories entitled "Fletcher's Creek." In these paragraphs, the main character, Drew, is driving down the winding road that leads to his high school all the while thinking of the girl next door.

It was Tuesday afternoon, and the leaves were beginning to change to a burnt mustard serenading the approach of autumn. Drew stepped off his front porch and headed toward his Wrangler. Tonight was the first football game of his senior year, and he wasn’t going to miss it. He didn’t play football, but he loved to watch. He loved the energy of the game and the intensity of the action. He loved the atmosphere of the stadium. He loved the smell of grilled hamburgers, and he loved the smoky taste of the burgers when they were taken right off the fire. He also loved that she was going to be there.

Drew rolled the top down of his Jeep Wrangler to let the crisp autumn air saturate his skin. The sun had not yet set, but he could see the moon in the sky, a sliver, almost like the fingernail of God. He drove through the winding street that led from his house to the main road. The trees bent over the asphalt and into the skyline like arms reaching for rescue. Yellow, red, and orange leaves littered the road and crunched as his tires sped over them. He gripped the handle bar of the Wrangler and steered with his right hand, all the while thinking of her and what he was to do should he have the opportunity to speak to her. He knew that she didn’t have a boyfriend, but he also knew that his confidence when he was around her decreased dramatically.

He drove in silence, listening only to the sound of the rushing wind and of the occasional bird. He enjoyed the drive to school because there were hardly any buildings or houses along the way. It was just him, his car, and nature. He was coming up to the bridge that crossed over Fletcher’s Creek, a serene spot which had become special to him because of all the time he spent there fishing and writing poetry. He hadn’t been to the creek in a couple of weeks, mainly because school had just started. He made it a purpose to stop by the creek tomorrow.

Blog #7 - Kathleen - Making Sense of My Writing

I've taken a sensory sort of essay of mine entitled Multi-Colored Memory and abridged it here so that it won't take up so much of everyone's time to read. So if it seems like there's something's missing, it's because there is! It's still FAR too long, though, and I apologize for the self-indulgence.

Remember how you felt when you were a child and got a big, new box of Crayola Crayons? You know, the 64-count box with the built-in sharpener on the back? You would almost shiver when you first opened it and saw all those fresh-tipped colors lined up like soldiers, ready and waiting to color your world. Remember the waxy smell the crayons emitted?

I'm going to take three colors out of that box: lemon yellow, sea green, and silver. And I'm going to use them to color a day at Tybee Island, Georgia, sometime around 1960. Of course, it is summertime. It's also a family reunion.

We arrive at Tybee during the lemon yellow morning, pulling up at Aunt Luella's large, rambling beach house, which is right on the ocean. The day is already bright and hot, and we step out onto the crunching, oyster shell driveway and shield our eyes from the sun.

I love this beach house. It is clean as a whistle and filled with bright oilcloth curtains and tablecloths. The bed frames are all painted shiny white or yellow or green, the mattresses covered with chenille bedspreads that offset the dark wooden walls.

In my memory, that morning is all yellow because it is filled with affectionate greetings and sunshine and the slipping on of brightly-colored bathingsuits. The house smells citrusy with cleaning fluid. And there is a big pitcher of lemonade in the ice box, so big that I need help to pour myself a glass. It's tart and bracing; the pulp scrapes my throat and tightens the taste buds in the back and sides of my tongue when I swallow.

When all of the relatives go down to the beach together, the day turns from lemon yellow to sea green. My cousin George, a Lutheran minister visiting from Alabama, is a robust and gregarious man who plunges into the surf, and we all follow suit. He holds court in the water, and the grown-ups gather around to talk and bob in the ocean. The gray green water is all around me, rising and falling, rising and falling, so much so that when I get in bed that night, the bed will do the same thing until I fall asleep.

I stick out my tongue to taste the salty sea; I study my shriveling finger tips. I flip over on my back and float a while, feeling the sun on my face and the gentle pressure of my dad's thumb and forefinger on one of my big toes, so that I don't drift away.

After dinner comes the silvery time. We all go out on the screened porch to be bathed and licked by the breeze. The moon is generous and full, but the grown-ups don't notice because they are too busy talking.

My tiny Great-Aunt Mamie and I are left out of the conversation, Mamie because she is a deaf mute and I because I am a child. I think that Mamie is signing to me, which panics me because I don't know how to tell her that I don't understand, but then I see that she is patting the empty place on the porch swing beside her and pointing to the moon. I nod my head and climb up beside her. We sit alone together and stare at the moon, which is like a perfectly round dollar thrown up into the sky. It casts a carpet of untarnished silver across the water that shimmers as the sea moves. It's simply brilliant. The chains of the porch swing creek, the adults laugh soft and low, the ocean murmurs. Mamie and I are silent and satisfied to be moonstruck.

A lemon yellow morning, a sea green afternoon, and a silvery night long, long ago. Everyone that was there that day is dead except for one boy cousin, my mother and me. I carefully put the three crayons back into the box so that they will not break, and I close the lid.

Blog #7 Melissa Davis

This is another excerpt from the retelling of Cupid and Psyche I am writing. Enid’s experiences at the beginning of the story are very sensory. She sees and feels everything for what she thinks is the first time while slowly becoming aware that she has been here before.

“Mistress, did you enjoy your sojourn?” a soft voice startled her and she whirled around. There stood an older man, dressed all in black. He waited patiently for her reply. In his hand he held a china cup and saucer. She could tell that the cup held a hot liquid from the steam and she thought she smelled Earl Grey tea.

“Yes, thank you…” she stammered trying to find his name.

“William, Mistress. I am the butler here at Camara.” William’s voice was deep and wispy, like he took shallow breaths between syllables.

She reached for the cup, but he motioned for her to follow him before she could grasp it. She shivered and realized it had been chilly outside. They walked down the left corridor and she was awed at the large number of canvas paintings. Each appeared, at a glance, to be originals, and each was in exquisite condition.

William stopped and turned to face her; he ushered her into a sitting room.

Plush, leather chairs and a large sofa invited her to sit and read from the bookshelves that dominated every wall in the room. A large fire crackled in the ornate marble fireplace and various lamps illuminated the room, creating a soft glow instead of the harsh light in the hall and foyer. Next to a chair was a tea cart, complete with a large ornate teapot and plate of tea biscuits. The smell of Earl Grey and vanilla filled the room. She walked over and sat down.

William handed her the cup of tea and smiled. Enid took a sip and an immediate warmth filled her as she tasted the wonderful mixture of bergamot and citrus. It was her favorite tea.

“Dinner will be served in an hour. Meghan laid out a gown. She is unpacking your trunk and will come for you before dinner. Is there anything else?” He never looked at her; he was always focused his glance over her left shoulder. She shook her head and he departed.

She wandered around the room sipping tea and feeling the warmth return. She had many questions. She passed a mirror and was astounded to realize she did not recognize her reflection. She studied her face for any familiar sign. Her face was oval with angular cheek bones and bright blue eyes. Her lips were full and pink. Her hair cascaded down her back in soft waves, the color as black as midnight. It amazed her that she did not even know her face. This caused not fear, but sadness within her. A single tear fell and she quickly moved on to the bookshelves.

She fingered the books on the shelves, pulling out a few here and there. Some were new with crisp dust jackets and unmarred pages, while others were so old that the cover illustrations were barely visible. Glancing at the titles, she remembered reading them at sometime or other. They seemed to be all her favorite titles. Random memories flooded her mind of school desks, childhood bedrooms, and parks with shady trees. None matched this house or this apparent life she lived now.

Blog 6 - Barbara - Writing: Message in a Bottle or Message in a Riddle?

Blog No. 6 – Barbara
Writing: Message in a Bottle or Message in a Riddle?

All of us have something to say. We say it with our body, with our actions, with our tone of voice, with the speed and distinctness of our speech, with the vocabulary we choose, with present or absent humor, and finally, with the message we convey in our story, which, in turn, exhibits our mindset, our attitude, our belief system, and our cultural background. Eighty percent of our communication is non-verbal, and since writing boils down to speech on paper, eighty percent of our writing is peripheral to the story itself.

I can tell you I own the cutest dog with fuzzy ears, a shiny taffy coat, and a bushy tail, that likes to chase boomerangs and that kowtows to my cat. Or I can tell you Golden Retrievers, known for their low intelligence quotient, will chase anything that moves, regardless of risk, and that mine in particular is so dumb he thinks my Siamese cat is Godzilla in disguise.

Or I can ask you, Have you ever watched a dog chase a boomerang and get clobbered by it? And have you ever watched a Siamese cat look upon the scene with all-knowing and all-patient benevolence. On the other hand, I can tell you about inter-species interaction and give you statistics on canines and felines impressing upon each other as infants, convincing each other that they’re littermates.

Conversely, I can tell you that (yawn) my dog, for the umpteenth time today, has caught the darn boomerang on its return trek and has gotten knocked out cold, to the great boredom of (yawn) my cat.

The way I tell you the incident conveys, among other things, my attitude toward stupid (and perhaps sweet) dogs and intelligent (and perhaps mean) cats, but also my attitude toward you, the reader.

If I’m dealing with human fictional characters, say Suzie and Jeff, and they embark on a serious conversation, let’s say, about their beliefs, and Suzie explains to Jeff how she went from atheist to Christian, no matter how Jeff responds, I’ve exposed my own beliefs in a nutshell, via Suzie, if I, the writer and god of this piece of fiction, happen to believe in God and Jesus Christ—which I do.

On the other hand, if I’m dealing with human historic, nonfictional characters, such as, say, Flannery O’Connor and Franz Liszt, and I let them speak according to their documented personalities and recorded quotes, then Flannery can say something like, There are too many writers on the loose because bad teachers graduate them. And then I’m letting O’Connor’s opinion come through to Liszt, and Liszt, known for his brilliance and humor, laughs. Here, the historic characters communicate in an authentic way and convey their convictions to the reader. I may not exhibit my personal opinion but I do show you (as opposed to telling you) O’Connor’s sharp mind and humor.

My point is this: I can oh-so-easily insert my message-in-a-bottle in a novel, anywhere I choose, in the dialogue between Suzie and Jeff. The words work as my servants to express myself. However, in my piece on O’Connor and Liszt, a combination of biography and fantasy (they meet through a time-warp), I convey my respect for the two artists, one a writer and the other a composer, in the clarity with which they express themselves. Here the words work as my masters to express other people and, indirectly, myself.

In the novel The White Tiger, we read Adiga’s views on the “true” New India, past, present and future. His protagonist, Halwai, states that a half-baked man is one who reads and writes without understanding (8-9). Here Adiga has placed his neck neatly on the chopping block: he fails to recognize that the understanding of the heart (integrity) counts far higher than the understanding of the mind. And so, at the very end, we’re left with a rich but nervous Halwai, who still doesn’t understand the meaning of life. Halwai misses the boat because Adiga misses the boat. And Halwai claims to be India’s “tomorrow”!(4).

Blog Post # 6: Agendas?! Ray Atkins Don't Need No Stinking Agendas!

The question of whether or not there is an agenda underlying my writing is an interesting one. If by agenda we mean an active attempt on my part to sway the reader to my way of thinking on one or more subjects, then no, I don’t believe so. I don’t try to coerce my readers into voting a certain way. Nor do I attempt to convince them to adhere to a particular religious belief or to subscribe to values I hold dear. I do have strongly-held beliefs on politics and religion, and on a large number of other subjects, and if I am asked for these, I will certainly share them, sometimes at length.  Otherwise, it's don't ask, don't tell.

When I read fiction, I do so to help me forget about serious issues for awhile, and I write it in the assumption that there are many other readers out there who could use a break from the bald realities of the world, as well.

I do, however, consistently write in a narrative voice that helps to convey a constant point of view. It is my firmly-held view that life is a combination of the ridiculous and the sublime, that we are players on the cosmic stage who spend our time on this world reacting to forces beyond our understanding and control. These forces can be termed random chance if the reader so chooses, or fate, or they can be examples of the good Lord moving in strange and mysterious ways.  Your belief in the nature of causality is your business.

My books are not about what this phenomenon is, but rather about how normal people behave in the presence of circumstances beyond their control. To paraphrase a famous quotation by someone whose name escapes me, we can’t win, we can’t break even, and we can’t even get out of the game. This philosophy is reflected in the narrative voice of my fiction.

In the following scene from The Front Porch Prophet, John Robert Longstreet—who lost his wife to a venomous cancer at a young age—responds to his own mother’s request that he accompany her and his young son to church. Note that he does not question religion, or God, or the politics of healthcare, or euthanasia, and that he does not interfere with his mother’s decision to take his son to church. The scene is about his reaction to that which he could not prevent or understand.

“You ought to come with us, John Robert,” she said.

“I expect I’ll wait awhile. Me and the Lord don’t see eye to eye these days. We’ll get around to talking, directly.” But they never did. The betrayal had been too great, the theft of Rose into the night too harsh. John Robert had looked deep into his heart and found no forgiveness. He knew he was a minute speck in the vastness of the cosmos, but he was the injured party and expected an accounting. But no bush on the farm burst into voice and flame to reveal why Rose’s presence had been required elsewhere. Skulled specters did not trot in across the back pasture under a white flag of truce to clarify why her transition from here to there had been so ungodly cruel. So John Robert did not forgive. And he did not forget.

Blog 6 - Jessica Quinn Faith-based book

I was excited to see this blog topic. This is exactly what I’ve been dealing with on my current writing project, Faith-Based Public Relations. The entire focus of the book is faith-based, but for me, that base is Christian. I’ve had to work to figure out how to reach the masses honestly without turning them off by the title. Is it Faith-Based or is it Christian? It is an element of both.

I have found that when the majority of America hears “faith-based” they assume Christian, but those who don’t are adamantly opposed to the two being interchangeable. This has presented the biggest problem because what I do is not “Christian Public Relations” which denotes that I only work with Christians in Christian media. Can you begin to see the dilemma? That said, I do only choose to work with Christian clients, but my specialty is getting them into the mainstream media and helping them not lose their Christian message in the process. I don’t just deal with Christian media, quite the contrary and I don’t want that to be assume. That is why I titled it Faith-Based Public Relations instead of Christian Public Relations—it gives a broader scope.

For those in the media that I work with, the Faith-Based title will make sense. For those in Christian colleges in the Journalism and Communications departments, they will be so relieved to finally have a trade-friendly textbook their students can use that doesn’t tell them they have to check their faith at the door in order to be in this business. At least that is the goal, and what I’m hearing so far. My niece wishes this were out before she had her PR class at Virginia Wesleyan. I also hope that those who need to do their own PR and can’t afford to hire an agency will be able to use this book as a tool to do just that. It will teach public relations, but throughout the book are personal stories, anecdotes, that bring the lessons home and they are all connected to my work in various industries with Christian clients. I want people to learn the craft of marrying public relations and their faith. There is a huge industry out there doing just that, but with so many mainstream companies buying out the Christian companies (record labels, publishing houses, etc.), the staff often doesn’t get the nuance of what they are now promoting. You promote the artist/author the same way, with the same basic skill and relationships, but for a Christian client, you do it keeping their faith in the story. That is what I want to teach to the PR masses. Sometimes keeping the faith in the story makes it a stronger story, sets it apart, and makes for a better experience for the media outlet.

Photo: Recent client, Stephen Mansfield (author), on FOX News Channel's Hannity on the Great American Panel.

Blog 6 by Brittany Leazer: The Hope of My Hidden Agenda

There is not much hidden about my agenda when I write. I have openly said many times that I want to write things that are redemptive, in the religious sense. I want people to find a nugget of hope in my writing. I write what I believe, and I believe in the hope, love, and freedom in Jesus Christ. It is very hard for me to stay away from my belief as a writer, because I feel there is no point in writing if I can't offer what, I think, the world needs to hear.

Most of the time, I try to be subtle with interjecting faith principles into my writing. I do not want to be overbearing and hit people over the head with it. I like to interject my faith with writing the truth. I understand that there are things that people have gone through, or things that people have done that are hard to deal with and hard to write. As a writer, I feel I need to write about these topics in a way that deals with them on an emotional and spiritual level. I want to show people the truth of life and that even though things may feel hopeless there is always hope. "Hopefully," I can write about this hope in a way that is compelling and not pushy. For me writing is about telling the truth, even in fiction. I believe that everyone needs the "Truth" in their lives.

Blog 6 Danielle Swanson

I think some parts of me and my agenda can't help but come through my writing. I mean, after all, it is my writing. However, my writing is light, so any agenda I may have, is also light.

For example, I have some issues with high school. Nothing bad ever happened: I wasn't bullied into tears ever. But there is some awkwardness with me because of my senior year, and so I always am kind of uncomfortable with high school, even though, for the most part, I loved it. Anyways, I definitely think that inspired me to have the crazy high school archnemisis I have in my current work. My agenda in that book might be to show that life does go on after high school and that people change, well most people.

I used to be a journalist, and as a journalist we had to keep all agendas out of our writing. As a matter of fact, I kept it hidden for my entire career with the Daily Tribune News that I was a big time liberal. Since I live in a town that is largely Republican based, everyone just assumed I was too. I never shared my true opinions until after I left the paper and started writing a column; it's amazing how many attitudes changed.

Someday I would love to be able to write a book like Adiga's that reveals some mass corruption or makes people's jaws drop, but right now I just want to write a light book that makes people laugh. I guess that's my not-so-hidden agenda right now: put a smile on someone's face.

Blog #6 Dina Agendas and Beliefs

When I first read the topic, I thought writing with an agenda and having my beliefs come out in my writing were two separate issues. As I thought about my writing, though, I realized that my agendas come out of my belief systems about the world and about reading. I read to experience things I have never, and may never, experience in my own life. I write to either create an alternate world, show something that I've never experienced before myself and learn as I write, or write about something I've learned through experience.

My short stories tend to have a more deliberate agenda and tend to be about things I've either experienced first hand or through loved ones. For example, I wrote a story about blind dating in a light-hearted way in an attempt to show how hard being single can be, especially as you get older. I wrote another story about a teen mom because my own mother was one, and I wanted to show how much harder being a mom can be when you're barely more than a child yourself. I'd like to write one about being raised in a religious community where homosexuality is viewed as a sin only to have your beliefs shaken when your brother tells you he's homosexual. My agenda there would be "judge not lest ye be judged."

My novels, however, haven't had an agenda other than to entertain and amuse.
With that said, so far anyway, my belief systems always come through because my protagonists are similar to me in their economic, religious, political, and sexual points of view, but I don't intend to do that every time. How boring would that be? I'd like to create protagonists more conservative or more liberal than myself and see where that takes the story. Thinking about agendas and belief systems has made me want to be more diverse when creating my characters, hopefully making my stories more interesting.

This topic made me contemplate what I want to accomplish with my writing. Do I want to do more than entertain? I think I do, and I'd like to be more deliberate about how and what comes through. I love books that challenge things I thought I already knew and understood, books that make me look at the world or at people from a fresh perspective. I'd like to accomplish through my writing. My main agenda, though, is to entertain - both myself and others.

Blog #6 Heather Cook

Although I don’t do it on purpose, I’ve realized that all my beliefs emerge within my writings. After actually considering that I might impose my beliefs subconsciously upon my audience, I realize that I typically write myself into the main character in a story or the speaker in a poem. In a detective story that I am currently writing, the main character is a lot like me—if I was a middle-aged man. Although he wanders the streets of San Francisco, he really is just a vagabond of myself within my own mind. He doesn’t drink, smoke, curse, sleep around, or bully—well, the scenes in which I write him don’t contain any of those things. Who knows what my detective does when I put my pen down and leave him alone for a while? I guess I write these characters with my beliefs because I want to like them. I realize that I’m going to be spending a lot of time with them, sculpting them a style and giving them a voice among other things. When I think about it, what I really do is create a temporary best friend on paper, one who agrees with everything I do, likes my favorite color and song, and voted Republican in the last election. I don’t do it on purpose, but now that I’ve realized it, it makes a lot of sense.


Now that I’ve become aware that I can limit my audience by including my own views, however subconscious they may be, I see that sometimes I should try to write characters who are different from me. Chances are, my audience isn’t going to be like me, so they won’t necessarily enjoy my created best friend like I do. Perhaps I will make my detective a smoker, or maybe he will like cats…

Blog # 6- Kristi DeMeester

When it comes to agendas be they economic, political, religious, or sexual, I find that while I let my own deep-seated opinions leak into my writing about many things, I tend to stay away from political agendas. As a good Southern girl, I learned from my momma that it's never polite to talk about politics and religion at the dinner table (she also told me that singing at the table would ensure that I would marry a crazy man, but that's another story).

When it comes to politics, I listen to my momma, but religion? Well...I talk about it shamelessly in my writing. And to my momma I say, "Well, why the hell not? I got enough material here to tell a million stories." Then she just shakes her head at me and asks God in a 'loud enough to hear whisper' why she was cursed with such a heathenish child.

Looking back at my writing I've noticed that the axis around which most of the stories spin is religion or sex. One dominated my life for so long that I can't help but write about it, and the other was the forbidden fruit for so long that I can't help but write about it either. But don't worry. I haven't gone blind yet.

Paper Heart is still in the developmental process, and I haven't quite decided what route I'm going to take with it yet. Growing up Pentecostal, then Baptist, and then just spiritually-minded, the pull of religion calls me. As O'Connor so eloquently put it the south is "Christ-haunted," and I see that spectre everwhere I go. It pops up in my writing before I can hit the space bar. When I figure out where it's going, I'll let ya'll know.

The Prophetess, however, is deeply rooted in religion and sex. A major concept I'm visiting is when religion is used as a scapegoat for depravity, as a vehicle for evil all while praising Jesus.

So when it comes to agendas in my writing, they are always there. I'm usually thinking about them, but I have to admit that I eventually get lost in the writing at some point and let the characters do the talking. Usually, they have something to teach me about my silly little agendas.

Blog #6 Lisa M. Russell

After cutting and pasting our blog assignment in an email to a friend, I got her honest response. I asked her to be truthful and she did not disappoint. I guess I should not be hurt or surprised because my sons think I should host a talk radio show – I wouldn’t go that far…

I do have strong opinions on the two topics we are not supposed to mention in social situations or write about in an MAPW class. My friend’s fierce reply to my question about writing my agenda caused me to wonder – is that so terrible to have stand for something – anything? I know decorum and diplomacy are required in the “academe” but must we lose our “soul” in the process?

One thing I want to learn in the MAPW program is to write with breadth and depth to reach a larger audience – otherwise, what is the point? I don’t need to write only to people who see things my way. However, I am not clever enough to conceal my world view in poetry or fiction – not yet anyway. I tire of listening to people who rant and hold to one view with blind allegiance. Yet, I refuse to be a chameleon and change with the surroundings. This is, however, value in hearing and respecting another’s point of view while maintaining your own.

One of my favorite writers was never really a writer. His wife translated his lectures he gave to his students after his death. Oswald Chambers in His Utmost for His Highest spoke in rich layers of truth that delivered fresh insight with each reading. If I could write like Chambers spoke to his students, I would feel like an accomplished writer.

Writing from my core is not writing with an agenda. Writing is hard enough, but writing apart from who I am is impossible. If I could just learn to write with quality layers integrating who I am with the needs of the reader – then I will feel like I am accomplishing something for good.

I went to the Booth Western Museum in Cartersville last week and looked at a painting of a horse. The woman artist had such a profound quote about painting, that I tried to memorize it and her name – my memory has failed me so I will paraphrase. The painter of this amazing piece of work said that She did not paint because she wanted to, she painted because she had to – it was her responsibility not her choice. That is how I feel about writing – I did not choose this life - it chose me. How can I separate from that belief and write with no “agenda.”