these boots were made for ...writing
The Miracle of a DIY Writing Retreat & Bootcamp
Book Finish Bootcamp kicked off on Wednesday…the middle of the week to untangle a muddle of a novel from the inside out.
Costume Creation Gone Crazy
She donned the gown like a girl playing dress-up and said, I’d love to dash through the halls of a palace quoting Shakespeare in this.
80th birthday celebration
The Mom who Showed Up
She wasn’t the mother she’d wanted, but she was the mother who’d shown up (from Wildcat by Amelia Morris). What does that prompt you to write?
Running Backwards
Funny Things Kids Say- Write it down
I’m not leaving it to memory–that faulty device–those things that make me laugh. We all need more laughter, laughing at ourselves and the ways our kids internalize what we think we taught them… Here’s a post I wrote over at MaMoMeMo, my blog for the month of May. https://mamomemo.com/2022/05/the-jesus-chicken/
Mother in the trees
Drawing for the Health of It
It makes sense now that I fell in love with a writing pen. I’m a writer, always trying to tell a story, even with my art. Through the years, drawing has also become a meditative experience that is calming and stabilizing, increasing my mindfulness, creativity, and health.
Can Drawing help Writing?
Do you ever draw as a warm-up to write? It can relax your reticular activating system (RAS) that makes writing seem like a risky activity, creating resistance and procrastination. Try drawing and breathing for just three minutes before you start writing. You might find it is the ticket in to that white hot creative space of flow. Here’s a short post with some resources and inspiration to get started. https://lorilyngreenstone.com/drawing-for-the-health-of-it/
Celebrating Birth-days
You celebrate your children’s birthdays, your husband’s, and your own birthday, but do you also celebrate you on the day you gave birth? I do. Which means I have 6 extra birth-days a year, and I deserve a bit of celebration myself on every one of them. 15 years ago today I gave birth to child #6 (not in my plans, but then neither was #1, or #5, all girls by the way; the ones we planned turned out to be boys…) I was 47. We went dancing that weekend, because, why not celebrate? And get this party started! Our oldest daughter was pregnant with our first grandchild, who was born five months later. She went dancing with us that night. Today, on the day I gave birth to my third daughter, I celebrated with a spa-bath (triangular tub, lavendar bath salts, time to relax and breathe deep), in the…
Interviews and Other Views
Women-On-Writing’s Renee Roberson asked some fun questions that made me think about ekphrasis, the writing process, and the novel I’m working on. They do this when you win a story award. Take a quick break and enjoy The Muffin, with coffee or tea, and me! https://muffin.wow-womenonwriting.com/2022/04/interview-with-lori-lynn-greenstone.html
Things You Might Miss
about your partner… It’s inevitable, I suppose, after being married a certain and very large number of years, like 42 or so– your friends start losing their partners in various ways… They’ve tossed or replaced them, and some have died. So you start thinking of what you might miss about your own partner. I start with his arms around me, the way our bodies, somewhat similar in height, meet each other on equal ground, wrap around, fit together. His stomach at 63 is still flat, almost concave on some days when he doesn’t remember how much food he actually needs… My stomach has no such issues, having housed six children (not in my stomach exactly, I know), and often thinking about the next food fix, but I tend toward not allowing myself to fill out too much so we still fit together well. After this many years, I’m thankful he…
creative process & giraffes
The Laughing Giraffe Draft
How an art installation can help you trust your creative process- Do you ever get a vision of something you’d like to create but don’t know the process that might turn your idea into a reality? I envisioned a life-size giraffe grazing on the tree tops in my yard, a spirit animal* with a whimsical neck and winsome body. When we moved from southern California to the Pacific Northwest, where forests meet yards, even in housing developments, I thought about how I might construct one of these stately, elegant creatures to view out my window. The idea first occurred to me when we moved to Bend, Oregon; a local artist constructs larger than life horses from lost and found pieces of metal. My hub was learning to weld so we started collecting rusty objects in hopes of constructing our own sculptures. Collecting and constructing are two different activities; we never…
How Small Prompts Help You Nano
And how to use them to keep the story flowing If you write with random prompts, or have, you are probably already a believer- this is the way; write in it. But even a believer falls by the wayside, forgets what tips and tricks have helped them in the past, and resorts to staring at the page or writing what turn out to be dull prose lacking the magic. How to get the magic back? Prompts- but what kind? from where?… I take phrases or words from books I’m reading, the stuff that jumps out at me since I read like the writer I am- looking for anything I can use, anything at all that will move my own story down the finish lane. Where to get the best prompts Currently I keep returning to a little known novel I find fascinating: The Mercury Visions of Louis Daguerre about how…
Ekphrastic Mama meets Mama Matanuska
Like a huge bird our airplane touches down on the tarmac and soon makes a turn–we are here in Cordova, Alaska, turning away from the mountains and rivers so immense it tries the mind, taking in this northern tundra from above–what specks we are, yearning for meaning, traveling at high speeds, and covering so much ground in a day that we may never catch up with ourselves. Next stop Yakutat; just for fun, the milk-run flight. Grounded for 45 minutes my mind turns back to home where a small urn sits on a shelf with all that is left to me of my mother, but once was arms and legs leading to toes turned into appendages from tadpole-like little pieces inside her mother, my grandmother. As we take to the air again, the image takes shape like a plane ride, the kind that turns upside down and right-side-up again just…
A New Thought for Today
I have lots of old thoughts that circulate regularly so when a new thought flits by I notice it and see if it’s one I want to keep. Today’s thought, early on this Sunday morning Mother’s Day, was about privilege, a hot topic and one I’ve been entertaining in new ways. This new thought took me by surprise, as new thoughts often do, being new. It was a privilege to be my mother’s daughter. Many of you might think these kinds of thoughts quite often; I confess that I haven’t had a lot of thoughts like this, but the thought seemed beautiful to me. I decided it could stay, that I would like to think this way more. It is a thought that serves me well. After it came another I liked equally well, maybe even better: It’s a privilege to be a mother of my three daughters (three sons…
Having a blast hiking at Beacon Rock on Mother's Day with daughter #3
A New Thought for Today
I have lots of old thoughts that circulate regularly so when a new thought flits by I notice it and see if it’s one I want to keep. Today’s thought, early on this Sunday morning Mother’s Day, was about privilege, a hot topic and one I’ve been entertaining in new ways. This new thought took me by surprise, as new thoughts often do, being new. It was a privilege to be my mother’s daughter. Many of you might think things like this quite often; I haven’t had a lot of thoughts like this, but the thought seemed beautiful to me. I decided it could stay, that I would like to think this way more. It is a thought that serves me well. After it came another I liked equally well, maybe even better: It’s a privilege to be a mother of my three daughters (three sons too, but today, as…