Diane Hughes | @DianeWordsmith
  • Home
  • My Blogs
    • Musings on Life
    • The Write Stuff Blog
    • Ireland Travel Blog
    • Tread Light Adventure Travel
  • Resume
  • My Work
    • Writing Portfolio
    • Photo Gallery
  • Writing/Editing services
  • Contact

MUSINGS ON LIFE
I think; therefore, I muse
 
DIANE HUGHES • NASHVILLE, TN
WRITER, EDITOR, CREATIVE PROFESSIONAL

The typewriter: A Christmas story

12/9/2012

16 Comments

 
On a cold Christmas night, a young girl sits eagerly waiting to take her treasured Christmas gift for a trial run. She inserts a sheet of paper and winds it around the cylinder of a shiny new Brother typewriter. It's the gift she had hoped for since her adolescent eyes first spied it during a visit to the local Western Auto store. 

She stares at the piece of paper. What should she type? A letter to a friend? A list of her favorite Top 40 songs? A birthday wish list? Perhaps a short story?

Slowly, her fingers carefully begin to tap on the keys, pecking out the title to her first work: A Christmas Story. Soon, a holiday vignette — written with the wide-eyed innocence of a 'tween —  emerges onto the page. The story sets a brief scene about gift giving, Christmas decorations, falling snow and sharing the joy of the season with loved ones. 


                           *   *   *   *   *
typewriter
My Brother typewriter. Yes, I still have it.
"A Christmas Story," reads the title on the faded sheet of notebook paper that I have gingerly removed from a small box that sits on my bedside table. As I unfold the creases to reveal the short story inside, I recall the night that I tapped it out on the keys of my brand-new typewriter.

I like to take out the piece of paper from time to time, unfold it and read it again. It demonstrates to me the power of words. Each time I take in those words, I am taken back to a long ago winter night when a little girl used her Christmas gift to create what would become a gift to her older self. And each time I read that Christmas story, I find a sense of comfort in my life choices and the inspiration to keep practicing what I love.

Why did I want the typewriter? I don't clearly remember. Perhaps I fashioned myself a budding writer even then. I remember viewing episodes of The Waltons and wistfully watching as John Boy, the aspiring writer, sat at his window in the evening light putting pen to paper. Back then, I had no way of knowing that writing would be my unique gift and become my life's work. Perhaps my mother saw a gift in me then that I had not yet realized myself. 

Recently, I was flipping through TV channels when a familiar face caught my eye. It was John Walton Jr. himself, after all these years, come to visit me again through the medium of television. Even now, I can hear the familiar refrains of the Waltons wishing each other sweet dreams. 

When I turn out the light on this December night, I will say a silent goodnight to the woman who gave me many gifts, including one that impacted my life in ways I could never have imagined. She was an angel then and is with the angels now.

Goodnight, Mama. Goodnight, writers. Goodnight, readers. Goodnight, everyone.

Is there a Christmas memory from your childhood that still takes you back in time? Did you receive a special Christmas gift that impacted your life? Please share your thoughts in the Comments. 
Subscribe to Musings on Life
16 Comments

When the words won't come: Dealing with writer's block

3/30/2012

4 Comments

 
Writer, writer's block
Today's installment is for all my writer friends. If you've ever called yourself a writer, you've probably experienced writer's block. You know the agony of staring at a blank sheet of white paper or the glow of an empty computer screen. While this missive may not help you tame your own writer's block, perhaps we can gather here for a virtual commiseration of that pain we all experience at some point. Then again, maybe a kernel of something here will resonate with you ... and send you flying to grab your pen and get some thoughts down on paper.

Below I am sharing a poem I penned some years ago. It was born from the angst of an aspiring young writer. I was struggling to produce a work of poetry, but the words and inspiration just weren't there. I fought for days, searching for my muse. Finally, I just let it rest. A day or so later, an early iteration of the following poem came to me. In the end, my writer's block was my inspiration. 

I polished and refined the piece some years later for a creative writing class in college. Today I share that poem with you and salute another teacher who inspired me and guided my creativity to help me discover what was hiding just beneath the surface. She encouraged me to reach and dream. Betty Nelson, this one's for you. I hope you're enjoying your well-deserved retirement.


Tyger, tyger burning bright
© Michael D. Hughes/TreadlightAdventure.com

When caged words sing

I wish that I could let them out
These beasts that storm and stalk about
If only I could find the key
To turn the lock, I'd set them free
Set them free by pen on page
From deep inside this troubled cage
Where they struggle deep within
Trying hard above the din
Of restless thoughts and untold dreams

... to escape


© Diane Hughes. All Rights Reserved.

Comments are welcome and encouraged. Please share your thoughts below.

Subscribe to Musings on Life
                               
4 Comments

Dear Diary: A writer's ode to journals & personal reflections

11/4/2011

9 Comments

 
Dear diaryMy love affair with writing began at an early age.
Last December, an unlikely glance at an obituary in the newspaper led me to reconnect with a long-lost (but never forgotten) grade-school friend. That unlikely event also allowed me to rediscover long-forgotten memories that lay within the pages of my earliest work as a writer: my five-year diary.

Most girls of my era had one. You know the type: A colorful girly cover guarding dated pages within that serve up a five-year timeline of what you were doing and thinking on a particular day. There was always the requisite lock, intended to keep out the prying eyes of parents and siblings. I'm not sure how well that lock guarded my secrets, but I do know that unlocking the pages of my tattered little tome revealed events that would have remained forgotten if not for the proof — written by my own hand — that they occurred. There were events that had long since faded from my memory. Knitting a purse for my best friend. Boys that I mooned over but who had long since faded from memory. Seeing the movie Billy Jack three times. How devastated I was when my best friend moved away.

My diary was a constant friend during my youth, an item that I treasured long into adulthood. For a time, the book was lost. But thanks to a family member, it was rescued from a box of belongings taken from my mother's home after her death. The day that it arrived in my mailbox, it was like seeing an old friend. And when I reconnected with my childhood friend through that obituary, I pulled out my diary to relive our times together. In the process, I reconnected with my inner child — the young girl who loved reading books, listening to sappy love songs, roaming in the woods near home and writing down her thoughts in a diary.

Why do I write? For a variety of reasons. I love to read, and I cherish words and books. I also find joy in sharing stories, both my own and those of others. Putting thoughts and words on paper (or screen) can be cathartic. It's also a way to preserve and validate precious moments from my life — to prove that they happened. Somehow those moments take on new life when they are put into words.

Recently I read about a New York Times article that cited a woman taking the drastic measure of burning her diaries. I was aghast that any writer could bring herself to commit such an act. Since childhood, I've been scribbling stories, reflections and recollections onto everything from notebook paper to diaries to handmade journals. And I could never see my way to burn those precious pages and deny myself the privilege of returning to them and reliving the moments of life from whence they sprang.

Burn my journals? Destroy my diaries? Never. They are part of me and who I am. I'm not sure how or why my friend and I lost touch, and the intervening years have taken us light years away from the naive adolescents we once were. But in sharing with her the thoughts from my diary, I had the chance to reconnect with the little girl I once was. To remember her hopes and dreams — and to find the inspiration to keep pursuing the dreams of the woman she's become.

P.S. Special thanks to the friend who rescued and returned the diary. You know who you are.

Did you keep a diary as a youngster? Are you a journal writer as an adult? How has writing affected your life? To leave a response, click Comment(s) and enter information in the Leave A Reply form.

Subscribe to Musings on Life
9 Comments

    DIANE HUGHES

    I write, edit, photograph and muse about life.

    Picture
          
           

    Subscribe by email.

    Powered by FeedPress


    Picture
    Need help to improve your writing? Visit my writing & grammar blog:
     The Write Stuff       


    ARCHIVES

    April 2019
    January 2019
    March 2015
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    November 2013
    May 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011

    CATEGORIES

    All
    Books
    Christmas
    College
    Copywriting
    Gardening
    Holiday
    Inspiration
    Learning
    Life Lessons
    Media
    Monday Minute
    Most Popular Posts
    Mother
    Nature
    Simple Pleasures
    Travel
    Versatile Blogger Award
    Write For The Fight
    Writing

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
Photos used under Creative Commons from matrianklw, Phil Hawksworth, miss machine♥, stephenshellard, heyFilbert, The Feedman, asenat29, alex_ford, kphotographer, http://www.samcatchesides.com/, dcarlbom, g23armstrong, Mourner, dorena-wm, ComputerHotline, Denkrahm, Sigma.DP2.Kiss.X3, trawin, comedy_nose, katerha, OiMax, kathryn_rotondo