Category: Writing

Full of Days, The Hidden Legacy, Writing

Completing Our Masterpieces

Carrie Sue Barnes

Oh, my friends. My dear reader friends. I am inching ever closer to the end of my intensive revisions of the manuscript. Every week I add another stack of pages to the “finished” pile and watch the “to-do” pile shrink. I can see the end. It’s out there; up a few small hills, hugging the horizon, waiting to greet me. Not that it’s the true end. It’s only another necessary phase of the work. Next up: an out loud reading of my novel to find mistakes and weaknesses overlooked by the eye but noticeable to the ear. Still, it is an end. It is a finish line I’ve been striving for since the start of 2016.

There are times I tell myself to calm down about it all. I fill my brain with warnings about expectations and hopes and dreams. They’re dangerous.

Wasted warnings; it can’t be helped. This manuscript is my masterpiece and I have to treat it as such. I don’t know if it will be a masterpiece in anyone else’s eyes but it is in mine. That fact means it needs to be offered to others. That’s the latest lesson I’ve learned.

My almost three year old son often returns from the sitter’s house with a new piece of artwork. He is invariably proud of them. This includes those that are purely his, that don’t show evidence of how much the sitter helped him but rather look, plain and simple, like the work of a toddler. I arrive home from my workday and he hands them to me with his head held high and a hint of wonder in his voice as he announces, “I made that!” They are his masterpieces. Even when I have to ask him to interpret the picture before I can see the train or the truck or the dog, they are his masterpieces.

Masterpieces aren’t meant for the maker alone. They are meant to be held up for anyone to see. At risk of rejection and criticism, indifference and even cruelty, they are to be offered. Because maybe my masterpiece might make another person’s day better; maybe it could plant a seed of faith in what is good and true and beautiful; maybe it could edify the heart and mind of a person brought low by lesser things. It could make someone laugh deep in their gut like we all love to laugh. It could bring joy or insight or inspiration. You never know. You never know.

We’re all capable of masterpieces. We were designed to provide masterpieces to the rest of our human family. Each unique; each requiring vulnerability and courage. When we create them, we know it. As we are filled with the urgent need to show it to someone, risks be damned, we know what we have created. Want to know why Facebook and YouTube and Instagram are so absurdly successful? Because we long to share our masterpieces with the rest of world. That’s not what we are doing most of the time in those mediums but it’s a large part of what drives us to use them at all.

My masterpiece might end up only being a masterpiece in my eyes. Or, at most, the eyes of those who love me dearly, much like a toddler’s indecipherable depiction of a train. In the end, that’s not what matters. What matters is the completion of the masterpiece and it simply is not complete until it is offered to others.

Photography, Pictures & Words Challenge, Writing, Writing Prompt

Pictures & Words Day 31: A Month of Ordinary Moments

Carrie Sue Barnes

Photo/Writing Prompt: An Ordinary Moment

I began this Pictures & Words challenge for the month of July for one simple reason: to push myself to write on this blog with a greater and more consistent frequency. As taking pictures is among my favorite activities and writing prompts have recently joined that category as well, I knew this challenge would be enjoyable enough to give me a shot at following through. With a handful of skipped days, I can happily say the challenge was a success. For that reason alone, I’m proud of this month.

What makes it truly great though is the fact that I gained so much more than fulfilling that one goal. It was inevitable. Watching, waiting, seeking out the right shot, it was impossible not to be tuned into the exquisite world that surrounds me day after day. My hand wrapped around my camera and my eyes scanning the scenes I encountered, a thousand ordinary moments became worth capturing. The details typically left in the background, overlooked as I went about my days, came to the foreground, demanding my attention. Like that butterfly on the edge of the flowering bushes lining the sidewalk: where normally I’d only have eyes for the blue views of the lake, I now desired to notice the bits of beauty in its shadows.

Then to take these captured scenes and put them into writing. Such a joy! This month kicked my imagination into high gear. Especially the days that I wrote snippets of fictional stories to accompany the photos, it was such fun to surprise myself with what arose from examining the picture. The endeavor taught me there is a story to be extracted from absolutely any fragment of life. A friend recently asked me where I get my inspiration to write and all I could say, with a laugh, was “everywhere.”

So, what do I want to say with these last lines of July 2016? Thank you. Thank you, readers, whomever you may be, for enjoying this month with me. Thank you for coming back again after your first visit to the blog. Thank you for pushing my monthly average views to the 900 to 1000 range. Thank you for taking a minute or two or five out of your day to read my creative ramblings. I can assure you that you have strengthened my belief these pursuits, no matter what comes of them professionally, are wonderfully worthwhile.

Writing

Let’s Do This.

Carrie Sue Barnes

I have a deadline, folks! An actual deadline with a tangible purpose. I often set personal deadlines for progress in my writing but I don’t strictly hold myself to them and little consequence is felt if they aren’t met. Finally, I have a deadline from an outside source!

It’s not the sort of deadline I hope for, i.e. from a publisher, but it’s still meaningful. At the end of September I’ll attend my first writers conference! I’m happily anticipating three days spent learning, networking, and dwelling in the professional writers’ world. During the conference I will have an opportunity for a brief one-on-one meeting with either an editor from a publishing house appropriate to my genre of writing or with a professional who can assist me with the proposal I need to submit my manuscript to publishers. To take the fullest possible advantage of this, I need to have my manuscript READY. Done editing, done proofreading, done condensing the word count.

So, I have a deadline. A real and necessary deadline! The excitement I feel might be a bit hard to grasp but I had to share anyway. It’s a little like this:

Photography, Pictures & Words Challenge, Writing, Writing Prompt

Pictures & Words Day 22: Today I Am Writing

Carrie Sue Barnes

Photo/Writing Prompt: Today I am…

I have spent the last six months diligently editing my Full of Days manuscript. Diligently doesn’t mean long stretches of time on any given day though so I am only half way through the novel as of today. A few minutes here, a lunch break there. Progress is progress though. With each page that I turn over to move to the next, I am more excited about the finished draft than ever before.

So, today I am writing.

I am stealing moments where I can to put my pen on these pages. Timothy and Annabelle are playing together happily. The scene before me, this pair on the floor and my manuscript on my knees, is one I treasure. It does not happen nearly often enough so it is a delight to capture it here.

Photography, Pictures & Words Challenge, Writing, Writing Prompt

Pictures & Words Day 9: On My Screen

Carrie Sue Barnes
Photo/Writing Prompt: On My Screen
On Saturday, I revisited a short story I began writing in January. It was a couple months since I last touched it. Reading it with fresh eyes I found I loved the words I’d put on the page. That isn’t always the case when I return to a previous idea or snippet of a story. 
It’s a quiet little story. Sentimental. I hope someday I’ll have it complete and I can share it with you in one way or another. That’s what I hope every time I start a story that I believe I could see through to its last lines. 
This is my first venture into the short story genre. It’s a challenge. I tend toward too many words, something that a short story author can’t afford. It is exactly the sort of project that I need as a fiction writer!
Maybe I’ll post an excerpt on here soon, or I’ll wait until it is finished and introduce you to Martin and Irene Tucker at that time. Stay tuned!
Photography, Pictures & Words Challenge, Writing, Writing Prompt

A Picture Is Worth How Many Words?

Carrie Sue Barnes

For the month of July, I am combining two of my great loves: writing and photography. I’ll be doing a month long photo challenge then using each day’s photo as a writing prompt. It’s a busy month but I shall do my absolute best to consistently post the results each day. This exercise in creativity has me quite excited. It shall be an adventure of the imagination! I hope you’ll enjoy it, too.

If you want to catch each post, consider following my blog by clicking the Google+ “Follow” button under my picture on the left side of the page. Thank you for being one of the much appreciated readers of Carrie In Writing!

Saints, Writing

If I Become a Saint, I’ll Do It With a Pen In My Hand

Carrie Sue Barnes

When a saint is portrayed in artwork, most of them have a trademark pose, object, or setting that signifies a key piece of their story. It is something that reminds you of how God reached into the ordinary and shaped this individual’s life into what is now worth remembering.

St. Paul is painted with a sword, for his mission was spreading the Word, which is the sword of the Spirit (see Ephesians 6:17), and he was martyred by the sword (beheaded). St. Peter is rendered with a set of keys for Jesus entrusted him with the keys of the Kingdom (see Matthew 16:19). St. Lucy has a pair of eyeballs on a small tray in her hand (yes, eyeballs) because one of the miracles of her life was the healing of her vision after being tortured for refusing to renounce her commitment to Christ. St. Francis of Assisi is generally portrayed with animals near him or in his hands for he was known to have a great understanding of the value of creation and all God’s creatures. St. Elizabeth of Hungary, a princess who after her husband’s death dedicated herself to a simple life of prayer and service to the poor and sick, is pictured with a basket of bread.

It all could have been different. St. Paul could have died still preaching against Christ and handing over Christians to the authorities to be punished. St. Peter could have remained a fisherman who never left his hometown. St. Lucy could have forsaken her young faith and married into a comfortable life. St. Francis could have continued as a spoiled, rich young man thinking of himself before anyone else. St. Elizabeth could have remained at court, cared for and wanting for nothing.

Oh, the changes wrought through the generations by every single person willing to lay themselves at the feet of God then stand to take up the plans He places before them.

If my image is ever painted posthumously, I hope there is a pen in my hand.