What to write about

Happy Sunday morning to everyone! I'm a little worried that our pool plans may be put on hold the way the sky looks this morning. It was pretty an hour ago when a pink glow spread across the blue. Now we just have gray dotted with darker gray, and I can hear the far-off rumbles of thunder.

Tomorrow starts the Missouri Writing Project. I was having nervous heart palpitations this morning thinking about it. The class will be full of people I know, which is great, except when it comes to sharing writing with them. If it's a bunch of strangers, then who cares if my writing is good or not? But with my friends, I feel a lot of pressure to write something meaningful. You know about this, don't you? It's the same pressure you all feel when sharing your writing in class. It's nerve-wracking!!

So, here's what I did to help myself. I sat with my journal (just like Dumbledore's penseive) and wrote down a list of topics I care about. Then I sat and listed possible formats I could write in. Here's my list:

• adopting needy kids from other countries as "better" than adopting needy U.S. kids
• school lunch
• materialism, consumerism
• advertising
• minimalism
• owning stuff vs. stuff owning you
• downsizing
• our new house
• my kids - the 5-year review
• my kids' birth mom
• raising kids: competing theories of how to raise "good" kids
• what are "good" kids???
• the negative impact of rewards & punishments

And, then my list of types of writing:

• poems
• essays
• articles
• short stories
• descriptive pieces
• letters
• editorials
• blog posts
• newsletter articles

Look at that! Totally enough material for class. After all, it's ONLY 8 DAYS LONG! I felt so much better after seeing these lists. Writing does that for me - it pulls the fear out of me and lets me look realistically at whatever is scaring me. Usually, I realize it's not as bad as I think. Or, if I see that it is bad, at least I can begin to see a path to a solution.

Happy Sunday to everyone!

Ms. Hagen