A Room Of Your Own: Don’t Put The Groceries Away

lizshine74by lizshine74

In A Room Of Your Own, On writing.

It started with some wild honeysuckle on my way home from writer’s group. A deep red like I’d never seen growing right there at the edge of the parking lot. I picked one, then four more.  Then, it was California poppies from the edge of someone’s yard. I felt rebellious. Did anyone see me pick them? I looked around. Then calendula, rhododendron, and some white decorative something–also from the edge of people’s lawns. When I reached my house, I added some fading forget-me-nots from my backyard. While I’m writing this blog, I am looking at the bouquet I made from them.

For the second week in a row, I didn’t bring any pages of my own to writer’s group. I didn’t have many and I’m feeling protective of the ones I have. On the walk home tonight I was listening to Stephen King’s On Writing. As always with audio books, I lost track of his narrative in parts, but I caught what he said about how a story should start inward, then move outward. Yes, I thought, this story is still inward.

When I came in the house tonight, my stomach growling, a bag of groceries I had stopped off to pick up on the way, I put the grocery bag on the counter and sat down to write. People are trying to talk to me (my son; my boyfriend) and I want to talk to them( I love talking to them), but I am mostly ignoring them so that I can write this blog. I’d rather be taking a shower–eating dinner–finding out how the evening went. I didn’t even put the groceries away and I’m not sure I’ve ever just left the groceries sitting out.

How did I get in the room tonight?

I picked a bouquet of flowers and sat it next to my writing desk.

I did not put the groceries away.

What are your tricks, writer friends?

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Some past posts to keep you making time: 
Adjust your pace accordingly.
It’s about the routine and how you shake up the routine
There are things you will have to give up
See it to achieve it
Washing the dishes
Write slowly
A celebration of the pause
Monday, a run through the driving rain
Zen accident
Get out of your comfort zone

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lizshine74

lizshine74

Liz Shine teaches high school English, writes, edits, and coaches other writers from her home in Olympia, WA. When she begins to feel overwhelmed by it all, she simply looks up at Mount Rainier in the distance and gets back to work. If that fails, she heads to the ocean. She is a founding editor at Red Dress Press. Her Substack Make Time is her gift to writers, like her, trying to magic time in this crazy, busy world. All of those posts are cross-posted on the blog here. You can see more of her writing at lizshine.com and find her on Instagram {@lizshine.writer} cooking, traveling, and in other ways seeking moments of awe. She has been an active participant in communities of writers since the early 1990s. She’s learned that two things feel truly purpose-driven in life: writing and coaching other writers. In the in between (because one cannot be driving for a purpose every moment), she enjoys looking for wonder and connection. She is a lifelong yoga student, an enthusiastic walker along streets and trails, and an amateur gardener and vegetarian cook. She lives in Olympia, WA. She believes in the power of practice and has been practicing writing since some time in the early 90s when she became an adult in the rain-soaked city of Aberdeen. Writing began with journaling, as a way to understand a confusing, sometimes violent coming-of-age. She writes mostly fiction, some nonfiction, and poetry, and holds an MFA from Pacific Lutheran University’s Rainier Writers Workshop. She is a founding editor at Red Dress Press.