31 Days of 5 Minute Free Writes Challenge

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This post is part of the 31 Days of 5 Minute Free Writes Challenge. Scroll down for the links and the graphic showing the prompts for the month.

It will be pinned to the top of the page until the end of the month. Check back for updates on the prompts. I may write several at a time and update just a couple of times a week. I seriously considered not posting any at all until all 31 were written. But that seemed like a long time to let myself possibly get behind. So I will post at least once a week. Five Minute Friday posts will be posted separately as they have been and linked to this post. I may not write them in order and I might add to some after I have posted if something else comes to me.

1 [story] Tell me a story, we would say to our Mom. She knew what we meant. We wanted her to read us a story. We wanted the close interaction where we knew we had her attention even if we had to share it between the four of us. Sometimes when we were still small enough one of us would get to climb in her lap and see the pictures in the book while she read to us, assuming the book had pictures anyway.
I suppose my love of reading and even writing can be traced back to those early stories Mom read to us. It helped us understand that words had the power to transport you into worlds you might never get to see otherwise and meet people from other countries or even planets. Nothing was impossible in a story. The author could tell you something from their own life or make something up. It didn’t matter if it was true or not, only that it was interesting to hear or read.
Words build stories and stories build imagination and imagination can take you anywhere! Read to the children in your life, because doing so could completely change their life forever for the better.

2 [afraid] In 2017, I chose my first ever word of the year. I chose the word FEARLESS to guide me through the year. To read more about my year of being fearless, please see the post from January 11, 2018. Don’t be afraid to choose a word of the year to guide you, often the word chooses you. Just give it some thought, there is plenty of time to select one before the new year begins.

3 [believe] I believe that all things happen for a reason. I believe that they happen when they are supposed to, in God’s timing, not ours. I can look back at my own life and find examples of this. I believe that I can do anything I set my mind to and not just because my mom always told me I could. I believe in honoring my commitments and keeping my word. I believe in treating others as I would like to be treated. I believe in hard work and doing things to the best of my ability and that doing my best will eventually pay off. I believe in continuing education, constantly learning new things as they come to interest me. I believe “I can do ALL things through Christ who strengthens me.” Philippians 4:13

4 [why] This was a Five Minute Friday prompt in February, so if you want you can read that post here.
In November 2017, I wrote a blog post titled, Why Do I Write? You can read it here.
Why Did the Peacock Cross the Road? That was the title of a post I wrote in July 2017 and if you are so inclined, you can read it here.
A great guy named Eric Dodge wrote a wonderful book, Why Not Today?, and I highly recommended it here.

5 [share] (FMF prompt)

6 [belong] I belong to an amazing group of writers who meet every Thursday night to write together. We know that no matter what else happens the rest of the week, if we show up at those meetings, we WILL get writing done. We have many word sprints during the night but also plenty of time to chat and talk about writing in between. The group changes from week to week, but as long as more than one of us shows up it is still a fun way to get our writing time in.

7 [hope] This word brought the song in the video below to mind. I can’t say it any better than the lyrics of the song, All My Hope, by Crowder.

8 [comfort] This word was the prompt I wrote to and posted in July 2017. You can read that entry here.

Comfort means different things to different people. When the word pops into my head, it is usually combined with the word food, as in comfort food. Some of my comfort foods include chocolate, bread, pumpkin, pasta. I think food comforts me because it makes me feel full and taken care of. This most likely stems from a childhood in a poor family where we ate what was put in front of us, like it or lump it, as Mom used to say. This taught me to eat more of things I liked and to know that would carry me through on the days when I didn’t like the food and would thus eat less. I try to find my comfort in non-caloric ways, but it is a hard habit to break.

9 [inspire] This word was the prompt I wrote and posted in July 2017. You can read that post here. I don’t know if I inspire others or not, but I find inspiration in many things. The way other authors write inspires me to keep writing. The success others have at blogging inspires me to keep putting myself out there a couple of times a week. Traveling and seeing other parts of my country or the world gives me inspiration. My favorite genre to read is Inspiration Fiction. I like reading about how others live their lives with and for God. Seeing the Word of God applied in life inspires me. What inspires you and what do you do about it?

10 [how] I found several previous posts with the word how in the title. Some of them go way back to the early days of my blogging. I remember writing the one about folding sheets by myself, it was difficult to explain without graphics, but I didn’t know how to take pics of what I was explaining back then, so that is one of the few posts without any graphics or photos. I cringe when I think about how hard it was to explain and I kind of wrote it for my kids and any possible future generations. But I made myself do it to the best of my ability and now it is out there for the world to laugh at or perhaps learn from. That is why I started blogging in the first place. I felt that I had a lot of knowledge (and maybe a little wisdom) that I had gained over the years and I wanted to share it so maybe future generations will be spared from making some of the dumb mistakes I did. Feel free to read and laugh at the posts linked below. Let me know how you liked them, be honest, I can take it.

How Do You Know Which Way to Go? (2017)

How to Fold King-Sized Sheets Alone and Making the Bed Easier (2015)

How I Learned to Crochet (2015)

11 [door] When I saw the word door, this song from 1976 popped into my head. Maybe I was meant to share it with you. Maybe one of you needs to hear it. I’m not sure but when Someone nudges me, I do what He says, so I am sharing it with you.

Many of you won’t be old enough to remember this song, but maybe you’ve heard it on an oldies station. Things were simpler back then. We weren’t afraid to answer the door when someone knocked, at least not as much as we are in today’s world. The world seemed much safer back then. At ten years old, I was allowed to ride my bike a couple miles away and deliver the afternoon newspaper route I had for a couple of years. My younger brother had the route next to mine so we rode to the apartment complex together, picked up our newspapers then each headed off alone to deliver the papers on our individual routes.

When my kids were nine to twelve years old, I would never have let them do this. I would have felt the need to be right there with them and keep them safe. In all the times I rode my bike around the neighborhood and over to the area where our paper routes were I only felt uncomfortable a couple of times, and those times may well have been unfounded because nothing ever came of them and I was perfectly safe. I most likely had a whole choir of guardian angels surrounding me and my brother, but we survived whether we did or not. So, what will you do when someone knocks on your door?

Paul McCartney & Wings – Let ‘Em In
Someone’s Knockin’ At The Door.
Somebody’s Ringin’ The Bell.
Someone’s Knockin’ At The Door.
Somebody’s Ringin’ The Bell.
Do Me A Favor,
Open The Door And Let ‘Em In.

12 [praise] (FMF prompt)

13 [talk] One of my favorite musicals, The Music Man, has a great song in the opening scene about talk, see the clip below about 1:10 in to get to the talking part.

If you’ve never seen the entire musical, you don’t know what you are missing. Talk about a great way to spend a couple of hours, this is it!

14 [ask] As a child, I was told you can’t learn anything if you don’t ask questions. So, what do I do when I have questions? I ask them if at all possible. I have learned a lot through the years because I wasn’t afraid to ask questions.
I have also made it a point to answer the questions of others when I can. Sometimes I even try to anticipate the questions that will be asked and head them off at the pass. What questions are you not asking?

15 [when] When is one of those words that has likely gotten a lot more use in the last century or two. Back in the day nobody worried about what time it was or when things were happening. Their world was small and their needs took up the bulk of the day. They filled their time with things like finding food, gathering wood to build fires to keep them warm and tanning the hides of the animals to use to make clothing. Nobody asked when will we get there because they didn’t go on road trips. When will we eat was obviously after dad brings the woolly mammoth home and we get it cut up and cooking over the fire. Please go gather some wood so we are ready when he gets here with it. Oh the simple times of days gone by…now everyone is in a hurry and running late. We are all overbooked and looking for ways to shave more time off our daily routines. When will we learn that happiness cannot be found with the addition of one more thing in our busy schedule?

16 [pray] It seems as time goes by the list of people I pray for grows and grows. Once in a while the prayers are answered quickly and the person can be removed from the list of those needing prayers most urgently. I pray while I’m driving, making dinner, sitting in a waiting room, where ever I get a minute to stop and think my prayers heavenward hoping they reach God’s ear. I pray for wisdom and guidance and the right words to say when I speak to someone. It needn’t take place on bended knee or inside a church, God hears your prayers where ever you pray them even if nobody else can hear them.

17 [pause] I have been told that on occasion I can be blunt. On these occasions, I usually end up wishing I had taken the time to pause and think before blurting out whatever thought popped into my head. Sometimes the mouth is working twice as fast as my brain and it might get me into trouble one of these days. I am a work in progress and God’s not finished with me yet, so please be patient and kind.

18 [search] The greatest search I have ever undertaken is the one to find my ancestors. I began the search in the fourth grade because of a school assignment my older sister who was in the fifth grade had to find her ancestors. Mom did most of the legwork for the assignment calling her mother-in-law and one of her older sisters to get the info we needed to fill in the chart. I was determined when the assignment was mine the next year to try to have more information that my sister did the year before. That assignment changed my life forever. Thanks Mrs. Langel!

19 [who] (FMF prompt) 

20 [audience] Getting up in front of an audience is not my thing. You might not know that I lack self-confidence in my public speaking ability. Whenever I had to stand up in front of the class and give a research talk (5th & 6th grade), I was very nervous. I didn’t have a choice. I did them anyway, failing was not an option. I learned that it didn’t really get easier over time like “they” said it would. I did get better at the research, but not being nervous while standing in front of even that small classroom crowd was almost more than I could handle. Trying to get my presentation to come out half-way decent was all but impossible. I’m not sure how I got through speech class in college, maybe the little experience I got in fifth grade helped me know I would get through it somehow.

21 [start] If you want to be a writer, you have to start by writing. You have to continue writing every chance you get. I am told that you have to know your audience and imagine you are speaking/writing directly to that person. This is where I start getting confused because to me, I have no audience. I can’t imagine who would want to read what little old nobody me had to say. I know I can count on the occasion read from a sibling or friend, but I doubt many read every post. I have a couple of friends that have told me they read every post, so I actually feel bad for taking up so much of their time when I do these 31 days of writing challenges. I console myself by reminding myself that it is just a five-minute free write, so it probably takes less than that to read what I write.

22 [help] I need help to get back in the habit of working away from home during the day. This means I need help getting up early and getting to bed at a decent time so I can stay awake and alert during the workday. It’s not that I didn’t try to get back on schedule or more accurately stay on schedule, but when one finds oneself not needing to be up and out of the house at a particular time it is difficult to stick to that sort of schedule. So, how do you do it you ask? Well, you try to get to sleep early the night before you have to get up and out of the house at some unreasonably early time and then you set multiple alarms and you just do it. The first couple of days are rough, but after that your internal clock resets itself with any luck and a lot of prayers.  Now the real struggle is not to let yourself get out of the habit again once you break that bad habit.

23 [common] Some folks have loads of book sense. Others have a fair amount of common sense. Then there rest of the world has absolutely no sense at all. I have known people who were very smart and probably over-educated but didn’t have the common sense God gave to a dog. Those people couldn’t find there was out of a one-doored room. Common sense seems to be one of those things you either have or you don’t. It can’t really be learned except maybe at the school of hard knocks. Some people have to repeatedly be put in situations they should never be in just to learn some lesson they should have already known. Use your head people!

24 [brief] Ok, the honest truth is that when I see the word brief, I think of men’s undergarments and I really have nothing to write about that, so this will be a very brief entry, but I made up for it below.

25 [capture] You know how sometimes something that you didn’t even know was a thing can capture your interest and you cling to it so much that it changes your life forever? Well, that is how NaNoWriMo was for me back in the wee hours of the morning on November first in 2013. I had been thinking that I was supposed to write a book. The idea just wouldn’t go away. So I found books at the library and tried reading up on how to write a book because, to be honest, by that point if I did learn it in school, it had long since been forgotten. I was wandering around the interwebs and found some mention of it and found the page. It sounded like a cool idea. Challenge yourself to write 50,000 words in just 30m days. When does this challenge happen? I bet I missed it, didn’t I?

What, it happens every year in November? You don’t say! Well, I think I was just God-smacked! He was telling me it was time to stop thinking about it, stop talking about it, and get busy and just do it! Well, that was subtle, Lord, but you have my attention. So, I read a little further and managed to get myself signed up for the challenge. Mom always said I could do anything I set my mind to, so I decided then and there to give it my very best effort. So, the challenge was to write a novel, ok a novel is a book, right? It says to write a fiction novel. That means the made-up story kind of book, right? Don’t laugh! It had been a very long time since I graduated from high school, and right then I couldn’t remember if fiction was the truth or the made up stuff. I decided it didn’t really matter to me, I was going to write a book. Since I was later finding out about this challenge I would just have to jump in and figure out the rules later, if ever. I had to figure out what sort of book I should write. Well, they say write what you know. What do I know? I asked myself. I know how to be a mom and raise two great kids. Ok, then, you can write about that. So I set about writing every little thing I could remember about raising my kids and managed to get 50,000 words of what I later learned was a parenting memoir of sorts written to win that challenge, and it forever changed the way I thought about myself. Have you ever had an idea capture your attention like that? Well, it’s not too late! Another November is about to start, and I will be writing my 6th NaNoWriMo novel for the win. Trust me, if I can do this for 5 years in a row, YOU can do it too. Join me, please.

26 [moment] (FMF prompt)

27 [whole] The whole idea of writing every day for 31 days is overwhelming. That is why I chose to do it this way and just add to it when I can and only have to create graphics for the one post. This also gives me the freedom to feel like I really can just spend five minutes or so on each entry. I pinned the post so it is always at the top of the blog during the month of October, but then I just do a few entries every few days to stay caught up. The deadline thing is important, but rather than feeling like a rebel for not writing one entry each day, I prefer to think of myself as managing my time for optimal success. The old me would have given up if I got four days behind like I did this week. The new me, however, feels very accomplished when I get caught up and when I plan to finish the month’s worth of prompts today which will be a few days early. So don’t look at the whole task, instead break it down into smaller more manageable tasks so you can set yourself up for success instead of failure.

28 [song] I don’t have much of a singing voice, but when I am alone in the car or at home and listening to music, I don’t let that stop me from singing along with whatever song I am listening to. I usually listen to music on Pandora or that I have saved to my phone for those times when I don’t have access to WiFi and don’t want to burn up our shared data. Often I find a song has popped into my head and I can’t get the words or tune out of my mind. When we were kids I would apparently just start singing whatever popped into my head and my older sister would tell me to quit doing that. I thought she didn’t like my singing but she admitted more than once that the same song at the same spot in the song was in her head and I just started singing it at the very place the song was at in her mind too. I have no idea how that might have happened but she wanted me to stop because it was unnerving to her. I just wish I knew how I did it so I could hear the songs playing in the heads of strangers, now that would be a cool talent or superpower to have!

29 [together] When my Thursday night writing group gets together, we all get stuff accomplished. We may not be working on the same parts of our writing as there is always someone who is plotting or planning, someone who is editing or revising and then others who are writing blog posts and even a few who are writing novels. When we get together, we are saying to ourselves and the others who showed up that writing is important to us and we are here for the next few hours to take it seriously and get to work. If you have never tried writing together with a group, I really want you to try it. In fact, November would be an ideal time to give it a try. Signup to write for NaNoWriMo and choose your home region. Keep an eye on the home region calendar to find events local to you, and actually, make time to attend them. This is important. Don’t worry if you can’t get to the 50k goal in the month, think of it as a way to make writing connections and life-long friends. Go to write-ins and meetups, interact with other writers. Be together!

30 [voice] I found my voice for blogging by making myself believe that I was only writing for myself. Sure I was posting it online, but nobody else was really reading it, right? Even after I moved my blog from Weebly to WordPress, I didn’t have the nerve to publicize it at first. Finally, I decided if I was taking the time to write it, somebody might as well be reading what I wrote. So eventually after I got a little more comfortable with using WordPress, I found the publicize settings where I could connect my Twitter and my Facebook so they got an automated post every time I published a post to the blog. I need to find ways to put myself out there even more, but being FEARLESS and having CONFIDENCE only go so far. If you have any ideas about how I should put myself out there, I’d be happy to hear them. Use the contact form and nobody will know what you said except me…I get not wanting to comment publicly. If you are alright with publicly telling me what you think I need to hear, the comments are turned on for ALL of my posts, so have at it.

31 [close] Close the door, or close to you? This could go either way. Sometimes, when life gets too close, you have to close yourself off so you can recover and move on to better and brighter things.

This is the close of the challenge, but it need not be the close of the regular writing habit. I found my reason to write regularly when I decided to take my blog seriously. I got even more serious about it when I took the leap of faith and both hosting and my own domain name in February 2017. Something about knowing I have skin in the game makes me take it more seriously and I have been posting regularly ever since. Don’t let this be the close of your reading what I write and post here. Please add your email to the little form along the right side of the page so you can be notified every time I post. I’d love to have additional accountability of knowing YOU are reading and watching for my posts.

While I did not choose to write one entry each day or post each entry in a separate blog post, I did try to stick to writing for just 5 minutes on each entry.
This post is part of the 31 Days of 5 Minute Free Writes.
The assignment: Write for five minutes on the word of the day. This is meant to be a free write, which means: no editing, no over-thinking, no worrying about perfect grammar or punctuation. Just write.

Here’s how it works:
You’ll only need to link up once for the whole challenge. You can also link up on the main Write 31 Days website at http://write31days.com/the-links/.
http://fiveminutefriday.com/2018/08/30/31-days-five-minute-free-writing-prompts-2018/
You write for five minutes flat on the prompt of the day, then post on your blog (or Instagram or Facebook account). Repeat every day until November.

 

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