On Third Writing Class:

First I will say that the Daughter Princess was in town and I spent a lovely afternoon with her. We visited for a while at the house then went shopping. Ending up at the bookstore where I bought her a knitting book she wanted to help get her started on the craft.

Daughter Princess is crafty but has been busy working and advancing her career. She makes beautiful candles, quilts and embroidery. She is now taking up knitting and will soon be addicted I predict.

Back to the writing class: Another woman has swelled our numbers. The class is now six. We start with a ten minute writing on a given subject as a warm up. Then get down to business of our individual writing projects. We were to present the project we want to polish off for publication. That is the goal of the class. ‘To publish a Letter to the Editor, small article, story or piece in a news paper or magazine.’ The group is still more undecided about said individual projects at this point. But say they are narrowing it down. I am down to two pieces.

More then half of the group are also into poetry writing and it was suggested that they enter into the poetry contest at the County Fair coming up this autumn. Forms were handed out and excitement grew. Homework: To come up with a list of writing prompts. (Ideas for subjects to write about for ten minutes.) And to write a paper with a hidden message. Start with a phrase of 25 to 30 letters long and write it by the letter along the left edge of the page and starting each line with that letter.

We took turns reading chosen works. I chose a bit of a longer piece that I will save for later. I will share the piece I read in the first class as I haven’t as yet.

Sitting Quiet by (?) aka Lady Euphoria
She sat watching dust motes sail lazily in the shaft of sunlight coming in through the window. Were there ‘Who’s’ on one of them? The man in the front of the room kept talking and she was getting tired of sitting in one place for so long.
She adjusted herself in her seat but it didn’t help. She looked at her purse, looked inside for nothing in particular; handkerchief, money, chapped lip stick and some candy. She closed it and set it in her lap again.
She watched the dust some more. Little tiny partials of dust floating, dancing slowly around in the sun light and disappearing at the sun beams edge. Someone in the room coughed followed by a flurry of people shifting in their seats. The man up in front droned on talking about things beyond her understanding.
The sun was warming the room to an uncomfortable level now. Why did it take so long for the air conditioning to catch up and turn itself on?
A man in the seat in front of her kept falling asleep. He wakes when his head falls forward. Then he pulls it up fast and looks around to see if anyone has noticed but not far enough to look at her. His movement stirs the air a bit and the dust starts to dance faster then it had before. It twinkles and winks as she watches. Can the ‘Who’s’ on the dust speck hear the man? Do they understand him? Do they care?
She wants to be home, comfortable, maybe take a nap. This wasn’t any fun. Not that everything had to be fun. It would be nice if it held her interest but she couldn’t understand and didn’t care either. She thought about her dog sleeping in the sun puddle in the hall. Barking in his sleep and his feet flicking like he was running in the air. Dog dreams. What do dogs dream about? She wished she could ask someone about it. She wished she could talk about anything interesting but she had to keep quiet so the others could listen.
The dust was moving slower again floating, just floating. Her eyes were getting heavy now. She had to blink them to stay awake. She shifted in her seat again and was surprised when everyone else stood up. Daddy was leaning down to pick her up and said, “There’s my big girl. You did a good job being quite in church today. Now let’s go home and have dinner.”