A Brave Writer's Life in Brief

Welcome new Brave Writer readers. I so enjoyed meeting many of you at the convention last weekend. I received the following wonderful email on Sunday and want to share it with you. It tickles me no end when someone puts into practice the ideas I share so effectively and quickly! Hope it encourages you too.

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Julie,

My name is Kari McGrath. I sat in on three of your sessions with my friend this past weekend, and ended up buying your book, and I just can’t wait to get started! I have told every friend I’ve run into that homeschools, and I shared last night with my husband, who thought it sounded great. Unfortunately, I got sick at the convention and lost my voice (now you might remember me!), so I stayed home today from church, and my oldest daughter stayed home with me. I was so excited, I told her about this new writing program we are going to be doing, how it will be fun, and I don’t think we’ll cry anymore! I know you talked about “Freewrite Fridays” and said that it would work Mon-Thurs…well, I have to let you know it will work on a Sunday, too! I just had to share this with you.

After I told her today what we’d be doing (freewriting), I couldn’t wait! So, she and I went into the kitchen, got our paper and pencils. I told her what we were going to do, and told her I was setting the timer for 3 minutes. She looked scared, so I said, “okay, we’ll write together for one minute!” One minute went by, and she was still writing, so she gave me permission to set it for 2 more minutes. At the end of 3 minutes, I stopped, and she said, “hold on, I still have another sentence to finish!” (This is my daughter who CRIES and gets spankings for her attitude when we write!) We stopped when she was done, then we read ours to each other. Here is hers: (note: The first sentence is from Lemony Snickets-when Count Olaf died, the second sentence is from Star Wars, then the rest of the sentences go back to another scene from Lemony Snickets..whose books she LOVED!)

count olaf laid in the water with the helmet in his hands. but master i Just saved your life. As the harpon {harpoon} hit his stomach he flew threw the wall and in to the fountin as he was drowing violet Klaus and sunny ran to the fountin they said they were sorry he drowned.

Ha! It was ALL I could do to not ask why she changed courses from Lemony Snickets to Star Wars and back, but I didn’t!!! I told her it was very good! Then I read her mine. It went:

I love my daughter, Myra. She is a precious gift from God to me. I wanted a child for so many years, and God gave HER to me. I am so thankful He heard my prayers! She is compassionate, kind, a great helper to me, a friend to me. She’s a beautiful girl, but she doesn’t see that. Others do, though-they tell me all the time. I don’t know what she’ll do when she grows up, but I think she’ll make a good mother.

I couldn’t get through reading that to her without crying. And, I kept crying. (I think it was half love, and half relief that she actually wrote!) She came over and hugged me. I explained that this was all we were going to do-once a week-for the next eight weeks, and then I explained how we’d pick one to revise, etc… Her response? “Aw..just one a week? Can we do more than that? That was alot of fun!!” WHAT???!!! Wow!!! Then she said, “Mom, your ‘poem’ you wrote was really nice…can I keep it?”

All I have to say is, Thank you, Julie! And, I haven’t even started reading ‘the jungle’ yet! Ha!

God bless,
Kari McGrath, Kentucky

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And that’s how it’s done!

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