Time to go Camping!

The Tuesday Slice of Life Is Hosted Weekly by Stacey and Ruth at their blog, Two Writing Teachers.  Have a terrific time reading all the slices!


This time I'm writing about the summer writing camp, sponsored by Kate Messner, Gae Polisner and Jen Vincent.  See the beginning post about it here.  The hashtag is  #TeachersWrite  & I've seen so many of you slicers signed up.  This will be fun.  I haven't been to camp in years, unless you count visiting my kids at their camps.  


       I started writing yesterday, and have several goals, one of which is to devote some really serious time to a character I wrote about early this year.  The beginning paragraph has been simmering in a file for months.  Every once in a while, I'd take it out & read it, then put it away, knowing I had no time to do anything with it.  So this time, when Stacey & Ruth posted about the writing camp on Facebook, I grabbed at the chance, of course not knowing that about 600 others would also do it.  It's going to be very interesting this summer.  
       Here are some things I've noticed about myself since yesterday. 



 I've put off writing both days until evening.  I've done some other writing, the newsletter for my colleagues that I do every few weeks, and my Monday reading post, but this writing, THIS NEW WRITING, I put off until after dinner.  Then, I put in a load of wash, drove down to the gas station to get gas, watered a few dry spots in the lawn, took a shower because it's so hot, and dusted the living room.  Really! I got out the duster & dusted.  Guess I was a little nervous to start.  
       But I did start and after reading Kate's latest post that gave some prompts and advice for writing about setting, here is what I wrote.  I have begun!  By the way, this is slightly connected to that first paragraph I referred to earlier, but different too.  It surprised me, so I'm going to follow the writing and just see what happens.
      Main Street, only two blocks long, runs southeast to northwest because the town founder wanted the best view of the mountains from his store.  From a hot air balloon, you would notice the stores are held in by the bookends of the Methodist and the Baptist churches.  In line like obedient school children are the brick facades of the drugstore, the grocery/hardware store  and the post office, where the morning visiting happens.  Sometimes there is time for a cup of coffee and the grown ups do their visiting instead at The Shady Side, the cafe across the street.  I hear “Ed, what in the world are you mailing off in that big box?”, and “My goodness Edna, your grandbabies aren’t babies anymore!” and then, more quietly, “Hey Josie, how’re ya doing?”  That last from Tommy Storker, new freshman at the high school, that I found out was running errands for his mother.  The petunias in the planters along the street splashed both the color and the sweet scent of late spring, and there is a clearness in the air that only happens early in the day.  The sun isn’t exactly bright, but illuminating.  I feel illuminated, as if the energy inside me will burst out if I don’t do something, and do it quick.  My name is Josie Brown, and I live here, a few blocks from Main Street.  I come downtown to see what’s happening, and I’m waiting.