Category Archives: Nandy Ekle

Prompt One

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Prompt One

By Nandy Ekle

 

I am going to attempt something new each week here. I have a list of story prompts that I want to use for my blogs each week. These are not my original ideas, they are from several lists I have found.

So, here is Number One. Not sure what to call it, but here goes.

THE FURTHEST AWAY FROM HOME YOU HAVE EVER BEEN.

I’m a person who loves to travel. Going different places to see new things is very thrilling to me. When I was a kid our family took the traditional vacations-two weeks on the road to to a destination for fun and relaxation. We stayed in hotels with swimming pools, we ate picnic lunches at roadside parks, we saw mountains and lakes, deserts and forests, beaches and cities. I have a lot of great memories; however, I am told that we actually went places and saw things and had experiences that I don’t remember at all because I was too young.

My husband and I have also been on several trips: Washington state, Oregon state, West Virginia, Missouri, Louisiana, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, California, Kansas, Arkansas, and Oklahoma. Not to mention all over our home state of Texas. We’ve even been on a couple of cruises, going actually leaving the U S of A and spending a day in Jamaica and a couple of days in different cities of Mexico.

I think one of my favorite places to visit is the Redwood Forest in Northern California. I love the mountains and I love the trees. These beautiful giants grow close and thick, the branches and leaves blocking the sun. Standing in a clearing surrounded by the ancient forest is a truly surreal experience. The fog comes in from the Pacific ocean, which is just through the woods that direction. You can smell the salt in the air and feel a cool breeze. When you look up to the sky, you only see so far up because the tree tops have trapped the mist. And as the branches shiver their leaves in the breeze, you could almost swear the mighty redwoods were whispering to heavens.

My second favorite place is the Rocky Mountains. Once we spent a weekend in Estes Park, Colorado. I have to say, the experience was just very nearly as wonderful as the time we spent in the Redwoods of California. We went to Colorado on a Friday in October, and on Saturday there was a light snow. The whole weekend was perfect.

My third favorite place to see is New Orleans. We went to New Orleans to do some research for a story I wanted to write. We weren’t able to stay long because of some problems, but while we were there we saw incredible things, learned some very interesting history, and ate fantastic food.

I could get very philosophical here and talk about my journey through life, but I’m not a philosopher. So I’ll just leave like this.

Congratulations. You have just received a post card from the muse.

 

Happy New Year

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Happy New Year

By Nandy Ekle

A new year, but the same goals: lose more weight, exercise my body, organize the house, cook more meals/eat out less, and write more words.

Yes. Write more words. I want to write more words. However, the year started off with lots of activities, lots of overtime at my day job, but not much energy to get it all in. And on top of that, I still have one more Christmas present to finish, several more to wrap, and a quick trip to deliver these gifts to those we haven’t celebrated with yet.

So write more words. I wonder if Stephen King says that every New Year? Write more words. How many words are enough? At this point, if I could just write SOME words that have nothing to do with my day job, I would be ver happy with even that small goal.

So, please accept this as confirmation the annual resolution of WRITE ORE WORDS has been set for this new year.

Let me know your goals for this year in the comments below.

Congratulations. You have just received a post card from the muse.

The Dog And the Leash

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The Dog And the Leash

By Nandy Ekle

I took part in a survey recently—one question, intended to make you think introspectively: name one thing you wish you could bring back from your childhood. This question definitely did get my brain cells working.

I started thinking about what kind of child I was. And then a story bubbled which gave me my answer.

Once upon a time, a girl had a dog. This dog was very energetic and very powerful, and the girl had to learn to control it. She clipped a leash to its collar and they went for a walk. The dog wanted to run and play, and he wanted the girl to run and play with him. But he was big and strong and the girl usually ended up huddled in a corner with a skinned elbow or a tear in her jeans.

But she couldn’t get rid of the dog because he was her constant companion. He went everywhere she went. He slept next to her at night, got up and went to school with her in the morning, came home and ate dinner with her, took baths with her, and then went to bed with her every single night.

And every day she took him for a walk on the leash. She learned to tell him no, that she didn’t want to run. She pulled on the leash to slow him down when he went too fast. And she yanked the leash if he tried to run after a bird or a rabbit.

But she also gave him treats. She bought tasty things for him to chew on. She gave him his favorite snacks. She scratched him behind the ears and made sure he had plenty of healthy food and water.

One day she took her dog out for a walk. She took hold of his collar with one hand and held the leash in the other. She rubbed the metal clip of the leash on the metal loop of his collar, but she didn’t really attach them. Instead she hung the leash around her neck, held her arm out as if she actually was holding the leash, and they began their walk. And an incredible thing happened. Her dog walked as if he really was attached to the leash. He didn’t run away from her, or drag her, or jump around. He walked calmly by her side and obeyed her when she talked to him.

After a while she remembered how much fun it was when he was running and jumping, and she wanted him to do that again. So she pretended to take the leash off his collar, but he still stayed calmly by her side. It wasn’t until she began to run that the dog started running as well.

So, I’ve gone through all this to say, I’m the girl and my imagination is the dog. I’ve spent so much time and energy learning to control it, and now when I want it to run wild, it looks at me as if I still have it leashed. If I could bring one thing back from my childhood, it would be my wild and free imagination.

Congratulations. You have just received a post card from the muse.

Fill In the Blank

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Fill In the Blank

By Nandy Ekle

 

Her first name is __________. Her hair is the color of __________ and her eyes look like __________. Her favorite hobby is __________. Her passion is __________, but more than anything in the world she wants __________, and she would be willing to give up __________ to get it.

His first name is __________. His hair is the color of __________ and his eyes look like __________. His favorite hobby is __________. His passion is __________, but more than anything in the world he wants __________, and he would be willing to give up __________ to get it.

One day they meet at __________ and they both know __________. They decide they should __________, each one thinking about that one thing they want so desperately. But when they begin to _________ they realize _________ all along. In the end they have __________ their goals to __________.

The End.

Congratulations. You have jus received a post card from the muse.

An Embolism

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An Embolism

By Nandy Ekle

 

In Leviticus 17:10-11, of the Old Testament of the bible, we are told:

10 And whatsoever man there be of the house of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn among you, that eateth any manner of blood; I will even set my face against that soul that eateth blood, and will cut him off from among his people.

11 For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.

This tells us that we live because we have blood in our veins. And we know that blood is made up of tiny little cells that float in plasma. If we get a cut in our skin, the blood can escape, which can lead to blood loss, and too much blood loss causes death. And death happens because life is in the blood.

So one of the defenses God built into the living blood in our bodies is the ability to clot when there is a break in the vessel. The clotting factors gather around the opening and this causes the blood cells to stick together and dry out, which builds a makeshift dam over the opening, which keeps the blood from escaping out of the body, which keeps the body alive.

And as fabulous as this natural defense is, it can go wrong. For some reason the blood can spontaneously clot for no good reason. When that happens, the clot can cause tremendous problems to the living body because it keeps oxygen from getting where it needs to be to keep the body living. These harmful clots are called embolisms. And this is my metaphor.

I’ve often referred to the writing part of my brain as a long hallway with many doors, or a laboratory/hospital full of beds with partial patients, or even a pot of stew on a campfire. But a new picture has come to my mind.

Writing is also like a circulatory system. We have the brain which pumps the words through the body. We have the arteries/veins which conduct the words from the brain to the page. And, yes, we also have the rogue clots which plug up the system and cause major problems to the manuscript. This is Writer’s Block, and I do believe it is a real thing.

So, what can cause a writing clot? Well, I believe there are as many causes as there are people who experience this. There’s laziness, depression, not enough time, too many distractions, no inspiration, illness, stress . . . The list goes on and on and on and on and…

In researching how to beat these word clots, I’ve heard many different ways to beat it, but of everything I’ve read, they all seem to agree with one exercise. And that is WRITE. You don’t have to have a specific plan, or theme, or outline, just put words on paper. You can write about your day. You can write about your decision to write. You can write about having nothing to write about. You can write a detailed description of the room where you are sitting. You can write a synopsis of a story you would like to write. You can write a book review.

Whatever words you write down, just write them. Just get them written and they will clean the clots out of your word veins, which will allow all your words to fly out of your pen.

Congratulations. You have just received a post card from the muse.

 

Knock, Knock

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Knock, Knock

By Nandy Ekle

I watched a movie which, for several reasons, took my breath away. The plot was a sweet love story about a grown man searching for answers about his father who had died. One thing he knew about his father was that he had written a very popular children’s book that became an overnight classic.

While he’s searching for answers he meets a man who believes himself to be the king of the imaginary kingdom the book was written about. This triggers a memory of an interview his father gave on a talk show promoting the book. The interview actually is the turning point of the movie and plays a part in the resolution at the end.

So while I’m watching the movie, I hear a knock at my door. I open it and see a middle aged woman standing on my porch with several bruises. Her husband stands next to her with a bandaged knee and a black eye. Their dog sits next to them with his head hanging low to the ground. They begin to tell me their story and urge me to write it down.

I look back at the television just in time to hear the man’s father tell the interviewer, “Sometimes the story finds you instead of you finding the story.”

Congratulations. You have just received a post card from the muse.

Writing Quotes

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Quotes

By Nandy Ekle

 

 

  1. “From now on, ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put.” —Winston Churchill
  1. “I get a lot of letters from people. They say: ‘I want to be a writer. What should I do?’ I tell them to stop writing to me and get on with it.” —Ruth Rendell
  1. “The art of writing is the art of applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair.” —Mary Heaton Vorse
  1. “Revising a story down to the bear essentials is always a little like murdering children, but it must be done.” —Stephen King
  1. “If writers were good businessmen, they’d have too much sense to be writers” —Irvin S. Cobb
  1. “If the English language made any sense, lackadaisical would have something to do with a shortage of flowers.” —Doug Larson
  1. “I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.” —Douglas Adams
  1. “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” —Ernest Hemingway
  1. “Amateurs sit and wait or inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.” —Stephen King
  1. “A non-writing writer is a monster courting insanity.” —Franz Kafka
  1. “When writing a novel, that’s pretty much entirely what life turns into: ‘House burned down. Car stolen. Cat exploded. Did 1500 words, so all in all it was a pretty good day.” —Neil Gaiman
  1. “Make it dark, make it grim, make it tough, but then, for the love of God, tell a joke. —Joss Whedon
  1. “The hard part about writing a novel is finishing it.” —Ernst Hemingway
  1. “Nothing’s a better cure for writer’s block than to eat ice cream right out of the carton.” —Don Roff
  1. “Good fiction create its own reality” —Nora Roberts

 

Congratulations. You have just received a post card from the muse.

 

Dear Muse

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POST CARDS FROM THE MUSE

Dear Muse

By Nandy Ekle

Dear Muse,

 I am 54 years old. You have been with me since I was a little girl. I’ve never not known you.There have been times when you’ve had millions words for me. And there have been times when I I couldn’t get so much as a beep from you.

 I remember when I finally learned to control you. I was just coming into my teens. You brought me a novel length story, which I wrote. Looking back, we were both immature, and the story was very naive. But together we did complete a novel.

You stayed with me for all my remaining years of school. We wrote numerous short stories, and we had a blast doing it. Our friends, Ginger and her muse, wrote with us and all four of us gained tons of experience.

After I married my husband and the children came along, you went on a vacation. I couldn’t blame you for it. Raising children took so much of time that I really didn’t have much left to give you. And I just have to tell you that I wouldn’t have changed any of that. My children needed me and I needed them.

Then they suddenly were grown and flying away to start their own lives. I called for you again, and there you were, whispering to me as if you had been beside me all along. You dictated stories for me to write. And write them, I did. I won honors with them, and a few were published. But the best part of writing your stories was . . . writing them.

Occasionally I notice you’ve gone on vacation again. I realize this when I have my hands on my keyboard looking for a word to type, and no word comes. I call for you and only hear silence. This seems to have happened more and more often. In fact, the stretches of your vacations are getting longer and longer.

But then yesterday, you were back. It was as if you had never gone away. I was sitting at my desk doing my day job. Suddenly, idea after idea came flooding back into the halls of my brain. As I researched for my letter writing, a new idea would pop up. I grabbed a pencil and paper and started writing a list of these ideas for my next projects.

So, welcome back, dear muse. It’s good to see you back here where you belong.

Congratulations. You have just received a post card from the muse.

The Empty Room

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The Empty Room

I stand here in this room listening for any sounds at all.  Nothing.  Dead silence.  I do hear echoes from past rants and raves, parties, fun, news casts, but all is quiet now.

The room is dark, but a little light comes in from the hallway where there are thousands of lesser doors.  The bit of light sneaking in behind me shows confetti, glitter, tissues, and even candy lying on the floor as a reminder of the phantom cheers and cries of the characters that are normally here.  There is a table near the podium in the corner covered with sheets of paper that contain words—happy words and lonely words, funny words and mad words, velvet words and loud words.

Where are the characters that inhabit this room?  There was someone in here not long ago, but they are all gone now and the silence is deafening.

Congratulations. You have just received a post card from the muse.

Nandy Ekle

How To Write a Story

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How To Write a Story

By Nandy Ekle

First

First you

First you write

First you write a

First you write a word.

First you write a word. Then

First you write a word. Then you

First you write a word. Then you write

First you write a word. Then you write the

First you write a word. Then you write the next

First you write a word. Then you write the next word.

First you write a word. Then you write the next word. Soon

First you write a word. Then you write the next word. Soon you’ll

First you write a word. Then you write the next word. Soon you’ll have

First you write a word. Then you write the next word. Soon you’ll have the

First you write a word. Then you write the next word. Soon you’ll have the whole

First you write a word. Then you write the next word. Soon you’ll have the whole thing

First you write a word. Then you write the next word. Soon you’ll have the whole thing on

First you write a word. Then you write the next word. Soon you’ll have the whole thing on paper.

Congratulations. You have just received a post card from the muse.