inspiration

Our Universal Tongue

By Ellen Blum Barish
Posted on

images 2There’s no denying that as a writer, I’m all about words. But when words are put to music and made into a song, a universal language is created that can move a mass of people all at the same time. Often it does the job better than mere words can.

I’m just back from my first trip to Nashville and the button of my music-loving soul has most definitely been turned on.  I road tripped down there with my husband and two dear, longtime friends for the annual Americana Music Association’s Festival and Conference http://americanamusic.org/who-we-are. Americana music is folk, country, rhythm and blues and rock and roll, often called roots music. All four of us love the many flavors of Americana music and the mess it makes with our emotions so we went down there to marinate in it.

Continue reading “Our Universal Tongue” →

Feel the Rain on Your Skin

By Ellen Blum Barish
Posted on
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“Unwritten” by Natasha Bedingfield
FOR ESSAYS NOT YET WRITTEN
I am unwritten, can’t read my mind, I’m undefined
I’m just beginning, the pen’s in my hand, ending unplanned
Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find
Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions
Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten
I break tradition, sometimes my tries, are outside the lines
We’ve been conditioned to not make mistakes, but I can’t live that way
Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find
Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten

 

 

 

A Rock to the Head

By Ellen Blum Barish
Posted on

IMG_0639Photo by Ellen Blum Barish

“I became a writer when I was hit on the head with a rock,” writes Karen Bender in “The Accidental Writer,” an essay in today’s New York Times Book Review. “There was blood everywhere,” she writes. “They actually had to move the birthday cake so it wouldn’t get bloody. That was one of the first lines I remember, that perception, and I remember saying it later with a mixture of wonder and pride.” She needed that observation – that first sentence – to give her a way to spin it. “..to make the sloppiness of the experience somehow my own.”

I love the idea of a rock to the head as writing prompt. A rock is a wonderful metaphor: sculpt one or put several together and you can make art.

What got you writing way back when? When did you stop and linger over just the right words?

You can read Bender’s essay here.

 

Open Window

By Ellen Blum Barish
Posted on

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It’s been a new year’s resolution of mine — for many years now — to reimagine my website and blog and this, finally, was the year!

My intention is to blog – more frequently – about writing process, craft and inspiration through stories from my own writing and teaching-writing life and to link you to provocative and thoughtful pieces, writing prompts and tools on the short personal narrative form.

I’m a cheerleader for the creative process, which we all know can be slow, lonely, surprising and magnificent — often at the same time. My mission is to inspire you to open your window and urge us both to the page.

Feel free to leave comments and/or to share bits of your writing adventures.

My window is always open.