Here’s your answer: yes, creative writing can be taught. Kind of. Except when it can’t.

I’ve asked myself whether or not writing can be taught many times over the years. I asked it when I was an undergraduate English major and couldn’t figure out how in the world to get my pioneer novel off the ground. (It was called Exodus, my friends. I’m not kidding. And no, it never did arrive at the promised land.) I asked it when I started teaching high school English and wondered how in the world to grade the heartfelt and mostly terrible poems that landed in my assignment basket. I asked it when I enrolled in a graduate creative writing program, full of crippling self-doubt mixed with the tiniest flicker of hope that I might someday write a short story that came to some sort of satisfying conclusion instead of wandering off to curl up in a corner and die. And I asked it again when I was hired to teach creative writing to the bright and motivated students at Brigham Young University. (read more…)

From FoxyJ

Last year a well-meaning family member bought my daughter a book based on the show Dragon Tales. For those of you who haven’t seen the show, there’s a brother and sister in the show who are actually one dragon. They have one body and two heads, and very different personalities. (read more…)

My husband doesn’t surprise me with bouquets of dewy roses flowers or lavish me with expensive diamond bracelets. He doesn’t plan elaborate surprises or whisk me off on exotic vacations to those over water bungalows in Bali. He’s not what I envisioned in my dreamy 15 year old mind. A man so in love with me he was constantly showering me with gifts. Instead, my birthday gift is usually something like a blender and my Valentine’s card is made from a manila folder he cut up at work. It’s not the showy romantic love of the movies– instead he gives me a blank check (no, not that kind of blank check).

He gives me freedom, with complete trust and unquestioning support. He encourages me to take opportunities that often take money, time and energy.

He doesn’t get fame and fortune in return. Instead he gets to come home to an empty house while his wife is traveling to some exotic locale on a medical mission, or to take a day off work and manage our three young boys sightseeing in New York City while I present at a conference. It means unloading thousand of things from the car after art shows and various PTO extravaganzas, and sitting on the bed in my studio (however boring it may be) to keep me company on a Friday night when he knows I am dying to paint.

He spiffies the house extra nicely so I can throw a baby shower or host a party, or have women over to paint. (Right now he is scrubbing the dishes so I can compose this post –oh the guilt). He doesn’t flinch when I spend money on a class, a workshop, a trip, or a cause I believe in. He’s wound up cutting many a wedding cake, and re-sewn many a pesky seam when I’ve gotten too frustrated with a sewing project; all this to let me feel the joy of accomplishment, the happiness of experience, and fulfillment from using my skills.

He’s not beholden to my beckon bidding, some obsequious follower. He’s the one who stands behind me and spots me when I get ready to jump. This is an important distinction.

He works behind the scenes making ME happen. Me, Leslie, the woman, the individual. He sacrifices things he’d rather be doing for my joy. He gives me the courage to jump, to take risks, to lose the self conscious fear, knowing he’ll always catch me and applaud my attempts no matter the outcome.

His example has taught me to love this way, to extend this love back to him, to our children, and to others.A personal love—born in serving, giving, and growing. A tribute to divine nature and individual worth. It’s not clipping their wings, putting them in a cage. Love is giving someone the gift of becoming their best self. It’s about letting them unfold into everything they can become.

So for all that I’ll accept the empty ice cream container on the counter, and the “sorry I’ll be late tonight”, and the absence of flowers and anniversary rings, knowing I have something the movies rarely show, something far more endearing and precious.

So tell me what do you know love to be? What people and experiences have expanded your understanding and definition of love? What powerful demonstrations or aspects of love have you experienced?

noun
1. The interaction of two or more agents or forces so that their combined effect is greater than the sum of their individual effects.

I remember learning the definition of this word from my freshman writing teacher, first year, first semester at BYU. She had us write. A lot. Every week we read, wrote responses, journaled, worked on ongoing writing assignments having to do with research and did some creative writing too. (read more…)

Am I the only one who is madly in love with President Uchdorf’s talk from the General Relief Society meeting in September? He spoke about a topic that I don’t believe I’ve ever heard addressed by a General Authority before: creativity. (read more…)

The other day, I went walking with a friend. I love exercising with other women. You find out the most interesting stuff about them that way. (read more…)

Here’s another Guest Post from Leslie at Heaven’s Overlook. Missed her post on blogging last week?  Here it is.  You’re welcome.  And thanks Leslie!

“Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord.” ~Psalm 27:14

When I was a little girl I believed in turning to God through kneeling prayers, but I often prayed with moving feet. Still do. I lifted my head from the sieve of my hands, and spent hours climbing the scrub oak in my backyard, where my sentences branched into heaven. (read more…)

From FoxyJ.  Don’t know FoxyJ (seriously?)?  Go here to learn more

When my husband I were first married we attended a birthday party for a small child. As often happens, the child got overwhelmed by the large quantity of presents and lost interest in opening them after a while. In my passionate zeal inspired by lack of actual parenting experience, I decided that we would limit our children’s birthday and Christmas gifts so that they would actually enjoy them. (read more…)

Wherever we go, my husband seems to attract them. They come up to him when we are standing in lines, eating at restaurants, parking our car, or walking in to the movie theater. They want to talk. Some of them have a bit of a belly, some are thin, some walk slowly with a stoop, some swagger with a hand in their pocket, but across the board, they almost all have white hair. (read more…)

My dad started a new job in Connecticut in 1979, and he and my mom moved their little family to a Cape Cod cottage, a couple of blocks from Lordship’s Russian Beach. I was four, and I doubt they knew it at the time, but they had picked the perfect place for children to grow up. My best friend Lucy lived across the street, and when we weren’t fighting, we had sleepovers on our screened-in porches and played in the life-sized playhouse in her backyard (it only sounds fancy), rode our bikes to the beach, and chased each other on the esplanade, a long lawn with big oak trees which ran down the middle of the street separating our houses. The witch’s house two doors down simultaneously terrified and delighted us. Our next-door neighbor, Mr. Wyler, older than Methuselah, gave us candy whenever we knocked on his door. We walked to and from the elementary school at the end of our block. My mom and I loved to walk in the neighborhood at twilight, so we could see into our neighbors’ houses and it seemed particularly voyeuristic because we knew everyone. (read more…)

This lovely post comes from Leslie of Heaven’s Overlook.  She is a part-time professor at Westminster College in Salt Lake City where she lives with her husband and three girls.  She’s new to the world of blogging and is interested in exploring blog writing as a genre.  She has a Master’s Degree in English (Creative Writing and Folklore) from BYU and has also had the opportunity of speaking at BYU Women’s Conference.  Wecome Leslie!

Anne Morrow Lindbergh, author of Gift From the Sea, walked away from her life and stripped herself from everything she was–mother, wife, writer, and community member— to find herself at water’s edge. That was the sixties. Women today have no need to make pilgrimages to the sea for self-reflection, although there is certainly something healing about the salt water and ocean air . Instead, we blog. (read more…)

My husband and I sat next to each other in bed and stared at our laptops. “I’m not answering that email! You do it!” he said. “No way. You’re the priesthood authority. You do it!” I snapped. Then silence.

The email? Just a friendly invitation to our son’s baseball team dinner next week. On a Sunday. Oh, I hate when this happens. My son is definitely not going, but what do I say? Do I want to be completely religious and tell the coach that we keep the Sabbath Day holy? And unlike most other Christian denominations that means not eating out and having a grand old time. Or do I just want to play the family card and say Sundays are not a day for friends? Which isn’t exactly true. I know we’re a peculiar people, but sometimes I just want to be normal and easy. (read more…)

Eighteen years ago, when I was dating my future husband, he walked into my apartment where I was in a heated political discussion with my senior thesis group. Spying his face, I pushed my books aside, leapt from my seat and rushed into his arms.
Contentment spread across his features as he sighed, “Wow, I hope you’ll always be that happy to see me.”

6,570 days, a half-dozen children and more crises than I can count, I am still madly in love with my husband. But he rarely gets that kind of greeting anymore. (read more…)

FoxyJ is married and has two children. She lives in California and recently started a PhD program in Comparative Literature. When she has free time she enjoys reading, blogging, watching movies, and riding her bike. She has been blogging for about three years at Yellow Wallpaper.  Welcome FoxyJ!

In early August 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait. At the time my father was working as a military contractor, and by the end of August he was in Saudi Arabia with a group of Marines. My mom spent hours watching TV, often accompanied by a friend from our ward whose husband was also deployed. I was twelve years old, and for six months of my life the Gulf War formed the background to my awkward attempts to navigate junior high. I remember shaving my legs for the first time with CNN playing in the background. (read more…)

Linn Allen is a mother to four and wife to one.  She recently moved from her beloved California to the freezing state of Massachusetts.  She has a BA in Elementary Education, but prefers to take money, on occasion, from people who hire her as an organizational consultant.  She loves teaching seminars on organization, reading, photography and organizing anything and anyone who will let her.  But mostly, she just enjoys being a mom to four children who have not yet realized she still has no idea what in the world she is doing.  This post was originally published on personal blog on October 15th, 2008.  She also blogs about organization here.  Welcome Linn!

One year ago today, my buddy Angel passed away. It was a day I was not expecting. At all. I thought he was getting better. I did not realize how sick he had become. His parents kept that quiet and I completely understand. And yet, the shock of hearing that he had passed away shook me to the core. I hated gathering my kids, after they came home from school, and telling them. We all cried a lot.

The first time I laid eyes on Angel, I knew he was different. He is the only child I have met that I honestly had the thought, “He is too good for this earth.” And he was. But selfishly, I didn’t want him to be. (read more…)