Life Lessons from College Basketball

Okay, so we watch our fair share of sports here in the Johnson household. I mean, gotta have a mix with all the reality TV and Food Network, not to mention the HGTV remodels.

Football, baseball, basketball. All of the above. And we like college basketball, namely the BYU Cougars. This past weekend, BYU was playing Gonzaga on their home court. They had a 22-game winning streak at home, and were ranked #3 in the nation.

BYU won 73-70.

Now, I don't really care who wins as much as my husband. I mean, I'm glad if they do, but I won't die if they don't. It's not like Survivor or anything. *wink*

But BYU won, and the interview afterward I found some inspiration for writing, and for pretty much anything in life.

Here's one article in Sports Illustrated. And one in The Deseret News.

BYU's Kyle Collinsworth, left, and Gonzaga's Kyle Wiltjer go after a loose ball during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game, Saturday, Feb. 28, 2015, in Spokane, Wash. (AP Photo/Young Kwak)

Kyle Collinsworth is a junior guard, and scored 20 points in Saturday's game. In his interview, he said, "We didn’t play that well offensively. We missed a lot of shots and had key turnovers... But we just stuck with it and battled all 40 minutes."

I think that's AWESOME.

Even if we're doing very well in something, we can stick with it and battle through until the end. Sometimes that's 40 minutes, and sometimes that's 4 months, or 4 years, or longer.

He went on to say, "I tried to do everything I could to get that ball and put it back in."

I LOVE THAT.

He isn't a magician. And he doesn't have a magic formula for success. He works hard. Obviously, the team practices, and he practices, and he puts in the time to be in good physical shape, etc.

But he's not a wizard. All he does is do everything he can to get the ball and put it in the basket.

I think that's great advice for anyone who's working toward a goal, be it a weight-loss goal, a writing goal, or increasing your ACT score. It works for almost anything in life!

Do everything you can to get better and take the next shot.

Seen or read anything inspirational lately?

We Are All Bart the Cat

Okay, so last week I was driving to parent-teacher conferences, and my friend Erin called me. She was all excited about this cat that had clawed his way back from death. I think the conversation went something like this:

Erin: Have you heard about Bart the Cat?

Me: No. I'm driving to work.

Erin: It's this cat that got hit by a car in Florida.

Me: O-kay. Great. One less cat in the world.

Erin: No! Elana! It's a great story.

Me: If you say so. Tell me about it.

Erin: So there's this cat that got hit by a car. And the owner was so upset about it that he couldn't bury the cat. So his neighbor, who was trying to be helpful, buried Bart in a shallow grave.

Me: Great.

Erin: But then five days later, Bart the Cat showed up at his owner's door. He had clawed his way out of the grave and dragged himself home.

Me: The dead cat?

Erin: Yes! The dead cat! Only he wasn't dead! He'd survived for five days in the grave!

Me: Okay.

Erin: Don't you see what we can learn from this?

Me: That we can be buried for five days and claw our way back to the surface?

Erin: Yes!! Just like when I thought my book was dead last fall, remember? It was dead! Buried! And then that agent emailed, and it came back to life!! I'm Bart the Cat!!!

(And if you've ever met Erin, you know that all these exclamation points are warranted.)

Me: You're so right! So when we feel like we've been hit by a car and buried in our neighbor's backyard in a shallow grave, we can drag ourselves back out and try again!

Erin: YES!!

(And if you haven't heard Erin's news yet, you should go over to her blog. We're dual-posting about Bart the Cat today.)

So there you go. We can all be Bart the Cat. We can pull ourselves back from the shallow grave when we feel like quitting, when our eyes have been gouged out, when we think we've had enough of this business.

I'm still not sure if I'm all the way out of the grave, but I'm not dead yet. Just like Bart the Cat.

What do you think? Are you inspired by Bart the Cat's story?

Recording Inspiration

Okay, so inspiration can strike anywhere, right? I often find myself getting random scenes in my head that I need to add to a draft of my book. Sometimes I'm at work. Or the post office. Driving. Or in the shower.

In the past, I used to carry a notebook in my purse (and I do have one in there now), but I don't use it for notes about my book. I've found myself turning more and more to technology to jot down my ideas.

On my phone, I have an app called ColorNote. It's basically like a Post-It note on my phone. I can type pretty fast with my two thumbs, and I don't have to search for a freaking pen that works!

On my tablet, I have an app called Evernote. This is an amazing tool, because I can sync it to my computer. So I can check my notes at work, home, or on the go from any computer.

If I can get to a computer, I do. I can type super-fast, and I can't even tell you how many emails I've sent myself this week! Like, probably 15, all related to plot points, or scenes, or characterization ideas I need to add to my draft.

So while I still carry a notebook in my purse, it's not my go-to tool for recording my inspiration.

What do you use to jot down your ideas when you're on the go?

Words For The Wise

Okay, so I was playing around with some fonts last week because well, it was one of "those days" where the universe seems to be conspiring against you, and everyone has written 40,000 words and you've deleted 129, and dinner burned, and your favorite reality TV show is a repeat.

One of those days.

And I like fonts, so I thought they'd cheer me up. They did, and not only because of the fancy curls and wicked edges. But because this is what I was making:

What do you do to cheer yourself up? Ever feel like quitting? Maybe try making some little signs for yourself... Or something.

How I Choose To Live

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.


Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.


It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.


We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?


Actually, who are you not to be?


You are a child of God.


Your playing small does not serve the world.


There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.


We are all meant to shine, as children do.


We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.


It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone.


And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.


As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."


~Nelson Mandela

This is how I choose to live. As a writer, I think it is especially relevant. Just like this quote, I often ask myself the question, "Why not me?"

So now I ask you: Why not you? Whatever it is you're aspiring toward right now, why not you? 


And how do you choose to live?

Muse, Music, Inspiration, Whatever

Okay, for this fantastic Memorial Day (it's raining here, insert sarcasm), I thought I'd throw out the topic of inspiration. Muse, ideas, dreams, whatever you want to call it.

Where do your story ideas come from?

This is not how you inspire yourselves to write. No, no, no, my friends. Pretend I'm like, Barbara Walters or better yet--Oprah, and you're on my show (this blog) and you're a multi-million dollar author with a series of books on the NYT's bestselling list. Okay...are you there? Got that image in your head? It's nice, isn't it? They're passing around goblets of Ginger ale and bowls of bubble gum sit on glass-topped tables...

Ahem. Stay with me. So the question is, How did you come up with the idea for your story?

I have a couple:

1. Music. More specifically, the lyrics in said music. I have a post coming up on this so I won't elaborate. Stay tuned for Wednesday though! It's gonna be a wild ride! *snarf*

2. Playing the "What If...?" game. This game basically goes like this.

Me: sitting at stoplight on the way to work. Creative Self, what would happen if time stopped right here, right now?

Creative Self: You wouldn't get paid. You don't go to work, you don't get paid.

Me: Forget about money. What if... Jon couldn't get to Annie in time? What if she became a ghost? What if Jesse kissed Rosemary? What if Gabby fell off that wall? How would she survive? What if Adam really is a traitor? What if DL died? What would that do to Bristol? Could she even survive that? Could Landon? What if... What if... What if... ???

I love this game. You should totally try it. Maybe not at the stoplight, but sometime. It can be played alone or in groups of up to five.

3. Take a shower, fold the laundry, push your kid on the swing. I get random ideas and spurts of insight into current stories doing mundane things. In fact, when I'm feeling particularly "blocked" I love turning the shower on as hot as possible and just standing there for a while. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, but I have received flashes of so-called brilliance whilst showering. Try to get that image out of your head. *ROTFL* Or better yet, use the word "whilst" in a blog post in the near future.

Which leads me to 4. Words. That's right, all you writers of words. I use words to inspire me. I keep notebooks of words I like. Things like "whilst" and "pontificate" and "gem" and "inked" and "prowled" and a whole host of others. Sometimes just being able to see those fun and unique words will help me write a sentence that uses words in exactly the way I want. And that makes writing fun. And if it's not fun, it's hard to do.

So that's it for me. I don't dream. I don't have a magical wand (which would be totally kewl). I don't have a sweet formula.

So inspiration...

Where do you get yours?

Book Reportage

I'm happy to report that I've read real, published books since last we talked! I also made the realization that I do quite a bit of beta reading and critique group reading and that those reading activities shouldn't be discounted. True, they are not published books, so they don't contribute to my yearly totals, but it's still reading.

3. The Last Apprentice: Revenge of the Witch by Joseph Delaney. This was a great read. Fast, too, because I got completely sucked into the world of being a Spook's apprentice. Very nicely done, Mr. Delaney. Very nicely done.

It's the story of a 13 year old boy who's learning how to deal with witches, boggarts and other things that go bump in the night. An exciting read.

4. So then I read The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. It was pretty good. I was intrigued for the first 200 pages or so, and then it sort of stalled for me. But the narrator was interesting and the story was compelling enough to keep reading. The thing I liked the most was the literary style of writing. For example:

It felt as though the whole globe was dressed in snow. Like it had pulled it on, the way you pull on a sweater. Next to the train line, footprint were sunken to their shins. Trees wore blankets of ice.

As you might expect, someone had died.

I've really been paying attention to what I read, what strikes me, what I really, really like. And sentences like these are brilliant. I really need to learn to write like this. I love it. Here's another bit from The Book Thief.

The last time I saw her was red. The sky was like soup, boiling and stirring. In some places, it was burned. There were black crumbs, and pepper, streaked across the redness.

Both of those passages conjured such great imagery for me. Other moments of brilliance were sprinkled throughout, so while I grew tired of plot at about page 200, I was able to press on and finish.

Because of the writing itself.

I read Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr last year, so it doesn't count, but she had this same style of literary writing mixed with an interesting story. Not too purple, but enough to stun you with the power of the words.

I so want to write like that.

5. Maximum Ride, The Final Warning by James Patterson. Okay, okay, I admit, I still have about 50 pages in this one. But it's a fast read, so I'll be done by the end of the day. I love the way Mr. Patterson weaves together the present tense commentary of the narrator with the past tense telling of the story. This is something I *love* and am trying to do in a novel I've written.

So here's my question, and it's really several. What books have you read where you fold down the pages because of the writing? Not necessarily the story, but the actual writing on the page? I need to read those books. Also, how have you decided what kind of writer you want to be? Do you want to write the gripping passage about a single color? Or are you the type that just writes what needs to be written? I'm a little of both. I'm trying to be more literary, but sometimes that's a hard mix with the sarcasm I've got going on.

*Snarf, snarf, snarf*

So how to you balance what you're writing? Some of everything in the book? Different styles for different stories?

See? Told you I had a lot of questions.

Being Thankful Day 2

Yesterday I posted on the thrills and chills of teaching and how grateful I am for that. Today I've got...

I am thankful for music.

When I was in junior high, our English teacher assigned us to choose one thing we couldn't live without for one day and write a paper on why. The three choices were television, cars, or music. I, being a huge TV junkie even back then, chose television. I never liked English and turned out some lame-o essay on why TV was so important no one could live for a day without it. *snort*

But now, I would have to change that to music. Since I drive in the car a lot, music is important to me. It can set the mood for almost anything. It can make me feel better or make me feel worse. There are so many uplifting lyrics and melodies that I don't think I could make it a day without music. Just imagine Indiana Jones without the theme music. When he puts his hat on at the end and you hear those familiar notes...there's nothing like music. Or consider Star Wars when Anakin is going to the dark side and you hear those bass notes signaling the birth of Darth Vader. I have chills just typing it.

Movies, TV, the radio, it's all meaningless without music. (Don't get me started on talk radio. Just don't.) I also find inspiration for writing and life through music. I really don't think I could go a day without listening to music.

I listen to music the same way I read books. Over and over and over again. Then I'll find a new favorite (right now the playlist has seven songs that repeat and repeat and repeat...) and replace one of my old faves. At this moment, Leona Lewis's "Bleeding Love" is being pushed out by Jesse McCartney's "Beautiful Soul." Sorry Leona. The playlist can only be 30 minutes. Why? I don't know, it's just something I do.

My all-time favorite song? I know you're dying inside to know. "Superman (It's Not Easy)" by Five For Fighting. Awe-some.

So I am thankful I can hear and have music to help me through my day.

On the Blog Chain - Inspirational Thoughs

Um, what?

Yeah, that's how I'm starting this one. Michelle McClean is to blame for this latest round of carnage chainage. For this chain, Kate posted before me and Terri is coming up tomorrow.

Here's what Michelle has cursed me with: Share a favorite poem, quote, joke, anecdote, or anything of the sort that deals with writing, writers, the publishing industry, or the other strange and unusual tidbits that belong to our little world.

She got me at "deals with writing, writers, the publishing industry, or the other strange and unusual tidbits that belong to our little world."

Ugh.

I have no writerly quotes, inspirational or otherwise. I have some quotes that I love but they don't pertain to writing. They more inspire me to be the best gosh-darn person I can be. So that's not gonna work.

So I googled. When in doubt, nothing beats google, except maybe ask.com. They're pretty good too. But then I went through this:

Frantic Self: Gotta find somethin' good, gotta find somethin' good...

Practical Self: This is so dumb. If I don't have something I live by, what's the point? It's just gonna be garbage I spew out to be in the chain...oooh! That looks good...

Frantic Self: Can't drop out this round, this is a great topic. I love Michelle, even if her boxes have eyes...

Practical Self: I am wasting so much time on google. I could be on Rally, QT, writing, reading blogs, cooking dinner, or watching Survivor. Hmm...click on that one...noooo! Look away, look away!

Frantic Self: *deep breath* Okay, just find one thing. One thing will be good enough...

Practical Self: I hate being at the beginning of the chain, I really need more time for stewage. Just think, Frantic Self, we'll have to pick the topic soon...

Frantic Self, even more frantic: You're not helping! *grumble* Pick the topic, sheesh Practical...just...need...one...thing...

Practical Self: ...

So I've got nuthin'. I'm just going to share my one favorite quote. I adore most of what Teddy Roosevelt said; he was such an inspirational person. This quote could apply to writing if you squint at the screen just right and really stretch the bounds of your imagination. Isn't that what writers do? Or maybe that's just me...the squinting and stretching part.

"When you are asked if you can do a job, tell 'em, 'Certainly I can!' Then get busy and find out how to do it."

---Theodore Roosevelt

I had this quote on the wall of my classroom for eight years. I think it's a good mantra for anyone in any walk of life. And that's all I have for this topic.