Writing - grace grits and gardening

Tell Your Stories.

January 11, 2015 By Talya Tate Boerner

I’m excited to be guest posting at A Love Letter to Adventure today, an incredible blog written by my friend Sarah Shotts. Sarah is an amazing photographer, an adventurer, a traveler. I like to think of Sarah as a younger, more exciting version of myself.

I’m a homebody. Sarah’s a world traveler. I love to take pictures. With my iPhone. She’s a real photographer with a fancy camera. She knows all about shutter speed and things like that.

Maybe I’ll get a camera this year? It could happen.

But the thing is, no matter who we are or where we travel (or don’t travel), we all have stories to tell.

Anyway. Several months ago, she asked me to guest post for her. I totally forgot what I wrote, but ta-da! HERE IT IS.

Tales from the Kitchen Table.

I hope you’ll read so she’ll ask me back:)

Happy Sunday friends!

Grace Grits and Gardening

Farm. Food. Garden. Life.

[tweetthis url=”http://bit.ly/1Kyud0i”]If you don’t tell your stories, who will? @sarahdshotts [/tweetthis]

And now, check out today’s Musical Pairing. Everything about this video is a story…

Lynn Anderson – I’ve Been Everywhere

My One Little Word for 2015

January 1, 2015 By Talya Tate Boerner

After considering three possibilities for my 2015 One Little Word, I focused in on one. Focus.

2015 will be my year of focus.

The new year brings a clean slate, and oh how I love clean. An ending. A fresh beginning. A chance to continue the progress already made. A new year where amazing things can and often happen.

2014 was a year of change. A year of believing things could change and making purposeful, positive change happen.

Now I plan to focus.

Primarily on my writing.

I’m ready. I can taste it. I want to sit at my desk and write for weeks and weeks uninterrupted. Guzzling coffee. Forgetting to eat. Totally absorbed. That’s the focus I can feel building beneath my skin.

Soon I’ll be making final-final edits on my manuscript (fingers crossed and knock-on-wood). I’m dreaming of that last mile, a completed project. Visualizing a book in my hands.

And I have other unfinished manuscripts hidden in the cloud. Short stories that need attention.

In 2015, I will focus on the craft of writing. Words I’ve yet to write. Stories untold.

I want to be present. Attentive. Mindful.

I want to absorb my surroundings, the sights and sounds that translate into words.

Sense the organic.

Listen to the voice.

My voice.

And there are other things I plan to focus on in 2015. Like our yard. We have a new fence, and that’s a huge start.

Of course, I’ll still blog. But posts may be less frequent. After my daily writing.

I’m excited about 2015. Happy New Year!

Grace Grits and Gardening

Farm. Food. Garden. Life.

[tweetthis]Focus. My #onelittleword for #2015. What’s yours?[/tweetthis]

Musical Pairing:

Kings of Leon- Last Mile Home

Playing the Air Trumpet instead of Writing

November 29, 2014 By Talya Tate Boerner

morgueFile

Last night I dreamed I was back in high school with my best friends—Becky and Anita and Norma and Judy—and we sat crammed together on a bus traveling somewhere to march with the band in a Christmas parade. The bus was cold. We wore matching red and gray uniforms, our school colors, and tall white plumes extended from the tops of our headpieces. The bus noise level made talking difficult so mostly we just laughed. Laughing was easy and normal and what we did best. But the whole time I thought you don’t play an instrument. Why are you pretending to be in the band?

Thankfully I awoke before faking my way down a parade route playing the air trumpet.

Whew.

Tired from that dream.

But now I’m analyzing each piece of the dream because it’s a game I play and something I find interesting.

The first part is easy.

At the Razorback basketball game last night, I kept one eye on the band. They jazzed up Bud Walton Arena and looked to be having a blast.

Inserting myself into the high school “dream” band is more complicated since my only musical training has faded to Chopsticks on the piano. I believe this dream was a pathetic reflection on how I feel right now about myself. As a writer. Attempting to be part of a group that I’m not confident I belong in.

I know this sounds woe-is-me. And I realize this feeling is only temporary and probably attributed to a particular chapter in my manuscript that I’ve been struggling to edit combined with too much Thanksgiving food.

Doesn’t everyone feels this way from time to time?

Say yes.

Grace Grits and Gardening

Farm. Food. Garden. Life.

[tweetthis]Yes. Everyone has “woe is me” days. [/tweetthis]

Musical Pairing:

Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock playing Chopsticks