Inspired Writing

Valerie J. Steimle

It's been a while since I really wrote anything of significance in my personal blog and this one here. It has been a real challenge for me to really dig down deep. I get ideas here and there but never follow through.  I believe it's because of the job I started a year ago next week.

Through a friend, I was able to get hired on for Native American Fatherhood and Families Association (NAFFA). It's home base is in Mesa and we all promote fatherhood and families. This was the dream job I was had waiting for over the last 30 years as I was driven to write. I focused on the strengthen of the family and that is what we promote at NAFFA.

The challenge for me now is to have enough energy, motivation and drive to write at night after I come home from a full day of writing and promoting family. Even writing early in the morning is tough because I end up falling asleep around 3pm at work.  It is a difficult task and after becoming an empty nester, traveling to visit family, married again and a 40-hour work week, I am totally exhausted. 

It takes a lot of brain power and time for me to write well so here I am trying to write to inspire all who read this blog.  Perhaps I can have a little help from fellow writers with inspiring words to help us all get motivated to dig, down, deep for inspired writings.

 “You don’t start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it’s good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it.

That’s why I say one of the most valuable traits is persistence.”

― Octavia E. Butler

“You can always edit a bad page. You can’t edit a blank page.”

― Jodi Picoult

“Every secret of a writer’s soul, every experience of his life, every quality of his mind, is written large in his works.”

— Virginia Woolf

Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day. The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them. Most people don’t see any.

- Orson Scott

“I can shake off everything as I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn.”

— Anne Frank

“People say, ‘What advice do you have for people who want to be writers?’ I say, they don’t really need advice, they know they want to be writers, and they’re gonna do it. Those people who know that they really want to do this and are cut out for it, they know it.”

— R.L. Stine

"If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn't brood. I'd type a little faster."
--Isaac Asimov

"The purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself."
--Albert Camus

I hope that helps inspire you to write inspiring writing.  It certainly has me.

Christmas Memories

As I look back over the years of my life, I thought I’d present a few random memories of Christmases past:

As a little girl, the extended family gathered at our house. My cousin and I slept in my twin bed, her head at the foot so we had more room. Grandma slept in the extra twin bed in my room. Some relatives slept on the couch or floor in sleeping bags. No air mattresses in those days.

Christmas Eve we gathered around our organ in our pajamas and bathrobes and Grandma Mac played Christmas carols while we sang everything from “Jingle Bells” to “Silent Night.” In the middle of singing, we heard Santa’s bells outside. All of us children pulled off our bathrobes while running down the hall or up the stairs depending on where we were sleeping. We had to get to sleep so Santa would stop. When I grew up, I learned it was usually Uncle Johnny that slipped out to ring those bells.

One Christmas morning, a squirrel came in the open door and ran across the dining room table, and all around the living room. Then he spotted something familiar—a tree, and scrambled up it, breaking decorations on the way. The adults had a hard time chasing him out.

Then there was the year Mom made me something for Christmas, and insisted I had never seen a real one. As a know-it-all teen, I thought to myself, how does she know everything I have ever seen. Ah well, she won that one. She made me a 5-foot tall mermaid for a bed decoration.

Christmas took on a whole new meaning when I had children of my own. From the first Christmas pictures of toddlers crying on Santa’s lap to the first one as empty nesters, all had a joy of their own. What I miss most about having children at home is our tradition of baking cookies and taking them around to friends and neighbors and singing Christmas carols. I could write a whole post about our experiences with that.

With all of the merriment and trappings of the season, the most important thing to me—Jesus Christ is the reason for the season. Without His eternal sacrifice to pay for our sins, the world would be for naught. Words cannot express how grateful I am for Him.