avatarHolly Jahangiri

Summary

The author reflects on a recent week filled with personal challenges, family events, car troubles, and creative writing endeavors, while also issuing a writing challenge to the readers.

Abstract

In a personal and engaging newsletter, the author shares their experiences from a week that included attending a unique high school graduation at a Texas motor speedway, dealing with unexpected car issues, and finding time to write despite the distractions. The author highlights their own written works, including an abecedarian poem and a villanelle, as responses to a writing challenge posed by a friend. In turn, the author extends this challenge to the readers, encouraging them to write either two poems, two short stories, or one of each, with topics ranging from humorous and upbeat to serious and uplifting. The author provides resources for poetry forms and invites readers to share their writings on the platform, fostering a sense of community and mutual support among writers.

Opinions

  • The author values personal connection, as evidenced by their desire to call readers by name and their reflections on family time.
  • They view challenges as opportunities for creativity, as seen in their response to Bob Jasper's poetry challenge and their encouragement for readers to write.
  • The author promotes the idea of embracing imperfection in writing, suggesting that "good enough" is preferable to perfectionism.
  • They believe in the power of writing to uplift and encourage, suggesting readers write about serious topics that can inspire others.
  • The author is community-oriented, inviting readers to engage with each other's work and to contribute to the collective creativity on the platform.

A “real newsletter”? Maybe?

Photo by Joanna Kosinska on Unsplash

Dear Reader,

If this were a real fancy-pants newsletter, it would have mail-merge and I would not have to call you “Dear Reader.” I could be like Miss Nancy, and call you by name:

Have you been a Do Bee or a Don’t Bee, this week? I’ve been a little bit of both, to be honest!

After traveling to Dallas for my niece’s historic high school graduation at the Texas Motor Speedway, and spending a relaxed and pleasant weekend with family, I did not write much, this week. We took my husband’s car, which is probably a good thing — if we’d taken mine, we might have been stranded at the first rest stop! (He had a flat, on our way out of town, but as luck would have it, there was a Firestone store right there by the nearest exit.) When we got home, it was my car’s turn to throw itself on the fainting couch:

Well, never waste a non-crisis, right? I wrote this while waiting on the “patient.”

A “Challenging” Week

Next, Bob Jasper challenged me to write a poem. An “abecedarian poem” — not a form I’ve ever gravitated to, but who am I to pass up a challenge? I posted

and then threw the gauntlet back at Bob with this:

And now, I throw the gauntlet back at you with a challenge to write two things, before this week is out:

  • Two poems (especially if you have never written one, or think you’re just not very good at it); or
  • Two short stories; or
  • One poem and one short story.

For those of you who say, “I want to write a poem, but I don’t know how, or where to start,” take a look at https://www.poetry.net/poetry-forms.php for a list of, and definitions of, various poetry forms. Or just wing it. None of us are Poets Laureate — perfectionism is the enemy of “good enough.”

For your topics, make one of them:

  • Something funny and upbeat; and the other,
  • Something serious that uplifts and encourages others.

For example, you might look for, read, and link to a few Black authors on Medium. Or write about how to cope with anxiety as your state or country re-opens even as nothing has changed with regard to the pandemic. You might write about what changes you hope to see when the world settles into a “new normal,” or the changes you’ve seen in yourself during the past three months.

Feel free to leave your links in a comment, here, or on one of my Stories. I’d love to read what you come up with!

Till next time,

Holly

P.S. If you just stumbled across this, why not subscribe, too?

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