Writing
Charlotte Rains Dixon  

The Week of the Niece and the Nephew

My niece graduated from high school last night.  She is a dancer and she's been a member of an amazing local high school dance troupe for the past four years.  Read about them here and here.  Describing them as a "high school dance troupe" doesn't really cut it, because in truth their shows are breathtaking and worthy of comparison to any professional dance company.   Lila is now moving on to be an apprentice (I hope I got that term correct) in the Las Vegas Ballet.  She also had offers to dance with the Nashville Ballet (my own particular choice for her) and attend NYU.  And a bunch of other stuff, I can't keep track of it all.  I'm not proud of her or anything.

And today my nephew played his sax and marched in the Junior Rose Festival Parade.  My sister and I entertained ourselves by following along after them as they marched, but Luke didn't think this was very entertaining.  He's in seventh grade and my favorite thing to do is hit him.  It's an aunt thing.

At any rate, between celebrating Lila's graduation, both with a dinner and the actual ceremony, and watching Luke play the sax, this week has been full of niece and nephew events.  Which makes me happy, but does not inspire blog posts about writing.

Fear not, however, because inspiration has struck.

In creating the workshop I'm going to be presenting at the Path and Pen conference, I've been thinking a lot about the keys to limitless writing flow.  I've written some about this (I think, I can never remember what I write about) and I'll no doubt be writing more because it truly is the most important thing you need to master as a writer–developing a consistent writing practice.  All skill, talent, and success at writing flow from that, I am convinced.

One of my keys is connecting.  By this I mean finding a way to establish a regular connection to God, Source, Creator, Goddess, the Universe–whatever you want to call it, him, or her.  You also need to maintain a regular connection to your self, or your true self, or your higher self, or your inner self, whatever you would like to call it.

But the week of the niece and nephew has made me think of connecting in a different way, and that is connecting with people.  We writers do tend to be a solitary bunch, comfortable being alone.  Its a requirement for the job, so if you don't much like being alone, you might want to think about doing something else.  But much as I love my alone time, I'm also a very social creature, as this week proves.

To me, though, this is a good thing (as long as it doesn't get out of hand), because while writing is not a social activity, what we write about is.  We write about people, at least most of the time.  We write about people in conflict with one another and we write to figure people out.  At least I do. 

If we're home sitting in front of the computer all the time, how are we going to learn enough about people to write about them?  Exactly.  We must take up the challenge and go forth and connect. 

I think the trick is to find the balance between going out and connecting with other people, staying in and connecting with yourself and God, and writing.  Oh yeah, that.  The point of it all.

0 thoughts on “The Week of the Niece and the Nephew

  1. RennyBA

    Congrats with all the achievement in the family – no wonder you are proud!

    The balance – yea – hard to sort out, but this was a great reminder. At least I manage to capture Oslo, Norway in heath this week 🙂
    (http://www.terella.no/2008/06/06/the-heat-is-on-in-oslo-norway/)

    Wishing you a lovely Sunday and a great week ahead!

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