Post by michelletherese on Mar 7, 2007 4:33:40 GMT -5
As folk here say, "Hoo's hid gaan? Whit like the day?"
(Orkney is more Viking then Scots!)
You will find that I am not one of those types of people that is dripping with writing talent. I love to write but I rarely knock anyone over with my brilliance. I live off of spell-check and my grammer is disgusting. My dream is to be an author - but I'll have to leave that up to God. Meanwhile I'll keep smiling and typing away!
I haven't been able to sit down and write since that "Intro to creative writing" class I took at the University of Alaska two years ago. I was studying Geology and I took this writing class during the summer semester. I was scared out of my wits when I had to share my writing for the first time! I was convinced that my classmates (and professor) would laugh me out of the room. Or stare at me in polite silence. Both of which would have made me weep!
I had spent the two previous summers at a Benedictine monastery working in the fields and day-dreaming about being a writer. I figured it was time for me to quit dreaming and to take some risks! The Holy Spirit was telling me loud and clear, "Leave your comfort zone!"
Ever since then I've been migrating between America and Britian like some kind of gypsy. Erlend (he's my husband now) helped me to drive from Alaska across Canada to Massachusetts so that I could be with my dying mother. I then spent six months bouncing between Aunts' houses and Orkney. We married in July 2006 and now I'm living here in Orkney and trying to get moved in...as well as adjusted to this strange new life called, "Marriage." The first time I woke up with my husband lying next to me in bed I screeched in terror. I felt like I was in some kind of modern version of, "Goldie Locks and the Three Bears."
I didn't even know how to boil a potato when I arrived. I could give a patient an IV or shock a heart - but boil a potato?? My poor little world was turned upside down! (You should see me trying to wrangle the sheep...)
Now I am settled! No more moving around! Now I can get myself set up for writing! Will I finally be able to realize my dream of being an author?
I found a beautiful red "cottage style" writing desk for the livingroom. I live in an old stone farmhouse with walls that are two feet thick! This causes our big beautiful windows to look like "bay" windows from the inside. I will place the desk in the huge livingroom window - the one that overlooks some of our best fields.
(I also have a convent-style kneeler that is going in the window in the small middle room upstairs - I will have a writing place and also a prayer place that overlooks the heather-clad hills and farm fields. It is so amazingly beautiful here on the island!)
I found a basic Dell laptop computer after several weeks of searching. I splashed out for a laptop because I cannot picture myself sitting here being creative while at this PC - it is stuffed in a dark dusty corner of the hallway!! I'd rather be outside under the sycamore trees in the walled garden or sitting on the lawn enjoying the scene of cows and sheep grazing and all of us basking in the rare Scottish sunshine! (As long as I don't sit on one of those killer thistles. I've since learned that you don't run around barefoot on the lawn in Scotland!)
In the winter or during bad weather I'll have my red writing desk in the window!
I can't focus for beans today. I'm sick as a dog. There's some awful virus that keeps going around and around again. Most of Orkney is sick in bed. The rest are staggering around and trying to recover. I think I'll go back to Northanger Abbey and forget about trying to string my own words together. Jane Austin and a hot cup of coffee always brighten up the day!
Oh wait - I need to do morning prayer first. The only way I'm ever going to be a writer is if God wills such a thing. I cannot get full of myself and I cannot depend upon myself. I must always lean on God. I have adopted the "Liturgy of the Hours" as part of my life. I fell in love with the LOH after ten years of visiting nuns due to the belief that I had a religious vocation. Now I am a housewife (farmwife?) and I am slowly training myself to drop everything and take up the Divine Office approx. every three hours throughout the day.
This has filled my life with such joy and peace!
I can't wait for my shipment to get here from America so I can set up my writing spot and my prayer spot. I can't wait for my laptop computer to arrive - any day now. Hurry up spring! It's time to get outside and get writing again!
I'll pray for all of you here at Dappled Things that God blesses your writing and helps you to be published authors if this is His will. Please pray for me! May God bless me with good words!
Pax! Blather back at me if you wish! Are you getting started too - or are you already up to your eyes in your dreams?
Your sister in Christ and Our Lady,
Michelle Therese
(Orkney is more Viking then Scots!)
You will find that I am not one of those types of people that is dripping with writing talent. I love to write but I rarely knock anyone over with my brilliance. I live off of spell-check and my grammer is disgusting. My dream is to be an author - but I'll have to leave that up to God. Meanwhile I'll keep smiling and typing away!
I haven't been able to sit down and write since that "Intro to creative writing" class I took at the University of Alaska two years ago. I was studying Geology and I took this writing class during the summer semester. I was scared out of my wits when I had to share my writing for the first time! I was convinced that my classmates (and professor) would laugh me out of the room. Or stare at me in polite silence. Both of which would have made me weep!
I had spent the two previous summers at a Benedictine monastery working in the fields and day-dreaming about being a writer. I figured it was time for me to quit dreaming and to take some risks! The Holy Spirit was telling me loud and clear, "Leave your comfort zone!"
Ever since then I've been migrating between America and Britian like some kind of gypsy. Erlend (he's my husband now) helped me to drive from Alaska across Canada to Massachusetts so that I could be with my dying mother. I then spent six months bouncing between Aunts' houses and Orkney. We married in July 2006 and now I'm living here in Orkney and trying to get moved in...as well as adjusted to this strange new life called, "Marriage." The first time I woke up with my husband lying next to me in bed I screeched in terror. I felt like I was in some kind of modern version of, "Goldie Locks and the Three Bears."
I didn't even know how to boil a potato when I arrived. I could give a patient an IV or shock a heart - but boil a potato?? My poor little world was turned upside down! (You should see me trying to wrangle the sheep...)
Now I am settled! No more moving around! Now I can get myself set up for writing! Will I finally be able to realize my dream of being an author?
I found a beautiful red "cottage style" writing desk for the livingroom. I live in an old stone farmhouse with walls that are two feet thick! This causes our big beautiful windows to look like "bay" windows from the inside. I will place the desk in the huge livingroom window - the one that overlooks some of our best fields.
(I also have a convent-style kneeler that is going in the window in the small middle room upstairs - I will have a writing place and also a prayer place that overlooks the heather-clad hills and farm fields. It is so amazingly beautiful here on the island!)
I found a basic Dell laptop computer after several weeks of searching. I splashed out for a laptop because I cannot picture myself sitting here being creative while at this PC - it is stuffed in a dark dusty corner of the hallway!! I'd rather be outside under the sycamore trees in the walled garden or sitting on the lawn enjoying the scene of cows and sheep grazing and all of us basking in the rare Scottish sunshine! (As long as I don't sit on one of those killer thistles. I've since learned that you don't run around barefoot on the lawn in Scotland!)
In the winter or during bad weather I'll have my red writing desk in the window!
I can't focus for beans today. I'm sick as a dog. There's some awful virus that keeps going around and around again. Most of Orkney is sick in bed. The rest are staggering around and trying to recover. I think I'll go back to Northanger Abbey and forget about trying to string my own words together. Jane Austin and a hot cup of coffee always brighten up the day!
Oh wait - I need to do morning prayer first. The only way I'm ever going to be a writer is if God wills such a thing. I cannot get full of myself and I cannot depend upon myself. I must always lean on God. I have adopted the "Liturgy of the Hours" as part of my life. I fell in love with the LOH after ten years of visiting nuns due to the belief that I had a religious vocation. Now I am a housewife (farmwife?) and I am slowly training myself to drop everything and take up the Divine Office approx. every three hours throughout the day.
This has filled my life with such joy and peace!
I can't wait for my shipment to get here from America so I can set up my writing spot and my prayer spot. I can't wait for my laptop computer to arrive - any day now. Hurry up spring! It's time to get outside and get writing again!
I'll pray for all of you here at Dappled Things that God blesses your writing and helps you to be published authors if this is His will. Please pray for me! May God bless me with good words!
Pax! Blather back at me if you wish! Are you getting started too - or are you already up to your eyes in your dreams?
Your sister in Christ and Our Lady,
Michelle Therese